Cardano’s [ADA] TVL slumps to an all-year low, but here’s the catch

Despite the success of the Vasil hard fork, Cardano [ADA] seemed to have lost its midas touch as its Total Value Locked [TVL] hit the lowest 2022 value.

According to DeFi Llama, the largest TVL aggregator, Cardano’s TVL was $76.26 million at press time. This value was the lowest the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain had reached since hitting $77.24 million in January.

Source: DeFi Llama

An assessment of the Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes) and lending protocol on the ADA showed double-digit decreases in the last thirty days.

Hence, it was inevitable to avoid the reduction. This meant that investors had pumped less liquidity into the Cardano protocol for a long while.

What’s a decline without compensation?

However, Cardano seemed to have gained some redress in other aspects. Based on reports from DappRadar, Cardano had a number of its applications soaring per users and volume. For example, Aada.finance gained 109.9% in the last 24 hours. 

MELD increased 40% to reach a $23.35 million balance, while NFT jungle picked up a 50% increase. It, however, wasn’t in all ramifications that there was an uptick. But for most of its decentralized applications, the performance was impressive.

Here’s AMBCrypto’s Price Prediction for Cardano for 2022-2024

While the DApp increase may have been some relief, the same could not be said for the ADA price. CoinMarketCap revealed that ADA had decreased by 1.14% in the last 24 hours.

While trading at $0.427, its 24-hour trading volume had also dropped to $379.11 million, meaning fewer investors have accumulated during the period. Besides these, there have been some notable changes on-chain which could interest ADA investors.

On-chain analysis

As per on-chain metrics, Cardano seemed to have reignited its development activity after falling short a few days back. As of this writing, Santiment noted that ADA’s development activity was back up at 73.52 despite a drawdown to 65.53 on 4 October.

However, on the circulation aspect, ADA did not improve. The on-chain analytic platform showed that the seven-day circulation was worth nothing close to September numbers. Before now, ADA’s circulation ran into billions, with 15 September bringing in 1.58 billion.

Source: Santiment

There was, however, another positive to look at. On 6 October, the Cardano foundation revealed an update to its NFT endeavors. According to the development, Etter Studio, a Switzerland-based design company, would launch its NFT via the Cardano chain.

#NFT unveiling happening soon! ??

Today @etterstudio and @CryptoNation_CH are launching their first hybrid #NFT collection in Zürich.

More details: https://t.co/FMItWqovwc#Cardano @nmkr_io

— Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) October 6, 2022

Still, Cardano may need extra work in the digital collection section. At press time, the total NFT volume on ADA had declined to $93,300.

It was a similar situation with the NFT trades, which were only six. Considering all these factors, it was likely that ADA may not exit the current struggles. However, a positive change in the crypto market dynamics could tweak its current situation.