The logic of the crypto market has always been subtle. The value discovery of all concept sectors or specific currencies has its own internal development logic. There have always been sectors that have been secretly accumulating momentum in advance, and there is no logic for inexplicable surges.
So after the surge in LDO and others, how do we understand the long-term logic behind the hot sectors that will gain momentum next?
Cardano’s ADA opportunities in the long term
Judging from the total market capitalization ranking of the crypto market, even though most crypto projects have been hit recently by the continued decline in the secondary market, Cardano's total market capitalization is as high as US$11 billion (CoinGecko data on January 11), ranking 8th in the market, and second only to Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, and XRP in the ranking of non-stable coins.
As the market began to recover on January 1, ADA's secondary market price also performed outstandingly, rising from $0.239 to a high of $0.346 in less than two weeks, an increase of 45%, far exceeding most other public chain tokens in the same period.
Previously, CaptainAltCoin predicted the price of Cardano in 2023, indicating that ADA may recover at the beginning of the year, and the value of ADA may reach $0.6395 by September 2023, which means that ADA has the potential to double in the secondary market in at least the next 9 months.
ADA has performed relatively strongly recently, and institutions are so optimistic about its future. What are the catalytic factors behind it that are worth paying attention to?
Vasil's long-term ecological catalysis
Since Cardano’s major Vasil upgrade on September 22 last year, it has significantly improved the speed and scalability of the network, enabling it to support more complex DApps with a better user experience. Cardano’s lofty goal of building a smart contract platform seems to be It was finally implemented.
As the infrastructure has been gradually improved in the past few months, the Cardano ecosystem has gradually attracted the attention and influx of market funds, which has further opened up a new narrative and valuation space for Cardano, an "old public chain", and laid the foundation for a new wave of DApps, new users, and ultimately the growth of the Cardano ecosystem TVL.
More practical applications are being developed. Among them, new innovations in the fields of NFT, DeFi, DAO, etc. are all long-term expectations and will be the key to the future success of the Cardano ecosystem. Naturally, they also contain the "critical few" for investment in the next stage of the crypto market, which is worthy of attention.
Among them, as Cardano's global incubation investment fund, Adaverse, relying on the endorsement and support of Cardano's official team, with first-hand resources and investment funds, has already taken the initiative to incubate and invest in Cardano's full-track ecological projects, thereby building a wide-ranging Web3 DApp ecosystem based on Cardano's blockchain infrastructure.
The core of Adaverse is to help developers save tedious work on Cardano’s infrastructure and focus entirely on product business logic, thereby making development and operations more efficient and reducing development costs, and forming synergies with other Cardano ecosystem DApps more quickly, thereby maximizing the share of the explosive dividends of the second half of the development of the Cardano ecosystem.
The rise of Cardano NFT track
At the same time, from a macro perspective, Cardano has also achieved a counter-trend leap in the NFT track. Since the Vasil upgrade in September last year, Cardano's NFT transaction volume reached US$19 million in October, second only to Ethereum and Solana, becoming the third largest NFT network.
Judging from the overall ranking, Cardano's activity has indeed increased significantly since the major upgrade of Vasil in September - the latest data from CryptoSlam shows that the average daily transaction volume of NFTs on the Cardano network has been around US$250,000 in recent times.
From a micro perspective, there is a clear upsurge in the number of specific NFT projects on the Cardano network, of which the Clay Nation series of NFT works is the most typical example. As a clay animation art and cultural project acquired by Snoop Dogg and built on Cardano, the Clay Nation series of NFTs has received increasing attention after the release of the related MV produced by Snoop Dogg and his son Champ Medici. As of the time of posting, the total transaction volume of this series of NFT collections has exceeded 31 million ADA (over 9 million US dollars).
In addition, Ape Society, the largest NFT project on Cardano, has also exceeded a total transaction volume of US$1,900, with more than 18,000 transactions, which has already ranked among the top NFT series on the entire network. This also indirectly shows that Cardano's NFT track is gradually gaining momentum and moving to the forefront of the public chain network.
ADA staking: sharing the “double income” dividend of Cardano ecosystem
In addition to the continuous increase in long-term expectations for ecological construction, users holding ADA and obtaining stable staking income in a bear market is also a bright plus point.
StakingRewards data shows that Cardano’s ADA staking is currently second only to Ethereum, making it the second largest staking public chain ecosystem with an annualized yield of approximately 3.42%.
At the same time, with the continuous black swan events last year and the increasingly tight macro environment, the downturn in the entire crypto market has lasted for more than a year.
In this context, compared with the general rise in dividends when the market is hot, in the current cooling market environment, how to effectively control the withdrawal of one's own funds and try to choose relatively stable income allocation is one of the high-quality assets in the market that deserves more attention and defense.
Therefore, to some extent, participating in ADA staking and obtaining corresponding staking rewards is the most direct way to share the dividends of Cardano's ecological development - basically, you can obtain the "double benefits" of currency price (boosted demand in tracks such as NFT, and development of the smart contract ecosystem after the Vasil hard fork upgrade) + staking income (3.42%) with a high degree of certainty.
In general, the long-term expectations of the Cardano smart contract ecosystem and the stable "double benefits" of ADA staking have gradually brought Cardano to the center of the crypto stage of value reassessment, causing the recent rapid increase in ADA prices, and its future performance is even more worth looking forward to.
How to stake ADA and earn returns?
Now let’s get into the practical part. As an ordinary user, how can we stake ADA on Cardano and obtain staking income safely and stably?
The first step is undoubtedly to have a Cardano wallet. There are many wallets that can be used to store ADA. Here we recommend using the beginner-friendly staking wallet Yoroi, which is suitable for anyone who wants to stake ADA tokens.
1. Download the Yoroi plugin wallet
To ensure security, we can download the plug-in wallet that matches the corresponding browser from the Yoroi official website. In this article, we will use the Chrome plug-in wallet for explanation.
2. Create a new wallet
We can choose to restore an existing wallet, use a hardware wallet, or create a new wallet. This article takes the creation of a new wallet as an example.
3. Create a username and password
Next, just name your wallet and create a password to access your wallet, and a corresponding mnemonic will be generated.
4. Save the mnemonic
"Private keys are assets", so be sure to keep the mnemonic in a safe place and keep it properly to avoid losing it. If you lose the recovery phrase, you will lose access to your wallet and the funds contained in it will be irrecoverable.
5. Deposit ADA tokens
Now, we need to deposit some ADA tokens into our newly created wallet. Clicking on the “Receive” option will show us our personal address to receive ADA.
6. Withdraw ADA tokens from the exchange
We need to copy the receiving address from the Yoroi wallet and enter it in the withdrawal address of the exchange, and then we can complete the withdrawal.
7. Start delegating ADA tokens
Click the "Delegate List" column in the upper right corner to select any Staking pool.
If we know the name of the staking pool, we can also simply type the name in the search bar and delegate the tokens.
8. Complete the pledge
After selecting the Staking pool, enter the corresponding amount to be staked and confirm your password. That’s it. You can then start collecting Staking rewards.
The operating fees vary for different staking pools. If we are authorizing for the first time, we need to wait for a 20-day approval period. Once the approval is completed, ADA rewards will be issued every epoch (5 days).
