While the price of Cardano ($ADA) has been dropping amid a wider cryptocurrency market downturn that saw the space’s total market capitalization lose over $170 billion in value, its top whales have been accumulating it over time.

According to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, while ADA is now down significantly from its all-time high of $3.1, whales holding over 10 million ADA tokens have “returned to their largest percentage of supply held in two years” at 46.6%.

Santiment’s data shows whales have been accumulating since February 2021 as the price of the cryptocurrency climbed to its all-time high and proceeded to come back down to the $1 mark.

Santiment noted that its metrics included the wallets of large cryptocurrency exchanges, which means the funds also represent the holdings of these platforms’ users. Earlier this month, data from the same firm showed that Cardano addresses with between $100 and $100,000 worth of the network’s native token have seen their percentage of ADA supply rise to a new all-time high.

Per its data, Cardano addresses with less than $100 worth of ADA and up to $100,000 worth of it have been consistently accumulating over time. Addresses above $100,000 but with less than 10 million ADA have been seemingly dumping their holdings.

The network’s “mid-tier” and top whale accumulation comes as Cardano adoption grows. As reported, year-to-date the number of wallets holding ADA has grown by over 500,000, with 453,000 of those wallets being created in the first quarter of the year.

According to Kraken’s March 2022 crypto on-chain digest, on-chain indicators are suggesting “prospects are bright” for Cardano’s ADA as demand for it has been growing over time. Kraken’s report details ADA’s transaction fees have risen “about 51.5% from $0.33/tx [transaction] year-to-date.”

Per Kraken, transaction fees “are a proxy for network demand” and while “blockchain demand is beginning to rise after taking a hiatus this year,” Cardano is in the lead.

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