Cardano’s Smart Contract Surge: Over 9,500 Contracts Deployed in 2023

• The Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem has grown to over 637 million ADA-locked amid the mainstream adoption of the web3 industry and digital assets.
• The notable Cardano network developments have helped the altcoin spike more than 59 percent in the past four weeks to trade above 61 cents.

Cardano (ADA) network, a fast-growing layer one (L1) blockchain developed to enable mainstream adoption of the web3 industry and digital assets, has grown to a mature ecosystem that secures billions of dollars. The past twelve months have been a bee-hive of activities for the Cardano core developers in preparation for the highly anticipated bull market in the next 24 months.

According to a recent report by the Input-Output Group, the Cardano network has registered more than 80 million transactions as of December 15, 2023, with only 153 decentralized financial (DeFi) projects. 

The Cardano network has strategically organized its policies to enable DeFi developers to seamlessly build applications that resonate with novice crypto investors. Moreover, competition in the layer one blockchain is mostly focused on the ability to build applications that attract mainstream users to use smart contracts to transact globally at scale and securely.

Since the Cardano network adopted smart contracts, its on-chain activity has grown exponentially over the years. As a proof-of-stake secure blockchain, Cardano has attracted both institutional investors and retail traders seeking to diversify their crypto portfolio, whereby more than 22.98 billion ADA has already been staked to passively earn and secure the network by more than 345k addresses.

Cardano Smart Contracts Makes Waves

The Cardano smart contracts have significantly grown in the past year to more than 637 million ADA locked on all smart contracts. According to the latest market data provided by Lookerstudio, the number of Cardano-based smart contracts has eclipsed more than 9k fueled by the mainstream adoption of web3 protocols. Precisely, the Plutus V2 Script, Cardano-based smart contracts that were introduced as part of the Alonzo hard fork were about 8k as of December 24, 2023. With the Plutus V1 scripts amounting to about 6,200 contracts, the Cardano network has a total of more than 14k smart contracts combined. 

Some of the top-rated Cardano-based decentralized applications include jpg.store NTF marketplace with over 21k unique accounts, closely followed by Minswap decentralized exchange (DEX) with more than 35k unique accounts. Other notable DeFi protocols on the Cardano network include Liqwid Finance, Muesliswap, and SundaeSwap, among others. The Djed algorithmic stablecoin has experienced notable growth on the Cardano network as it plays a crucial role in stabilizing the 9.17 million native tokens.

ADA Price Action and Analysis

Amid the ongoing altcoin awakening, ADA price has rallied more than 60% in the past four weeks to trade at $0.666.

The mid-capped altcoin with a market capitalization of about $21 billion and an average 24-hour trading volume of approximately $831 million is on the cusp of a major bullish breakout after the weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI) rallied above the 70 level for the first time in two years. From the short-term outlook, Cardano’s price has been consolidating in an ascending triangle that could yield a bullish breakout in the coming weeks.