Whales on the Cardano ($ADA) blockchain have been on a buying spree to the point that their holdings have risen by more than 40% so far this year. The whale accumulation comes as developer activity on Cardano, as measured by GitHub commits, surges, along with its decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
According to data from blockchain analytics firm IntoTheBlock, first reported on by CoinDesk, Cardano addresses holdings between 1 million and 10 million ADA have seen their balance rise to a record 12 billion ADA, worth over $10 billion.
The figure represents a 41% increase since late January, and comes as the total value locked in the Cardano network rose from around $1 million at the start of the year to a new $162 million all-time high at the time of writing, according to DeFiLlama data.
As reported, earlier this month Cardano whales bought over 16 million tokens in only 24 hours in the largest single-day spike in Cardano whale accumulation in months. The spike came at a time in which data revealed that Cardano’s developer activity so far this year is more than seven times that of BTC, and has recently greatly surpassed that of Ethereum.
Lucas Outumuro, head of research at IntoTheBlock, wrote that decentralized exchanges on Cardano have “raised capital from reputable crypto funds such as Three Arrows Capital, and added:
Cardano appears to be showing signs of promise for more to come after years without launching smart contracts. This appears to be translating into an accumulation of ADA from large players.
Cardano whale holdings have been increasing after a 70% correction on ADA’s price, Outumuro wrote, noting that the referred group, along with addresses holding more than 100 million ADA, recorded double-digit growth month over month.
The analyst noted that these whale addresses “had previously sold a large amount of their holdings right before ADA began to crash,” which suggests they are now eyeing a potential surge in the price of ADA.
Notably, last month Singapore-headquartered cryptocurrency trading platform Bitrue added ADA as a base currency on its exchange, with the launch of nine new trading pairs.
A base currency, it’s worth noting, is the first currency appearing in a currency pair. It represents how much of the second currency – the quote currency – is needed to get one unit of a base currency.
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