San Francisco-based exchange Kraken released a report showing that almost every Cardano on-chain index is “growing exponentially.”

“We see Cardano experiencing exponential growth across most metrics, both on-chain and off-chain.”

The report comes at a time when Cardano’s growth momentum is slowing. In September 2021, ADA surged and reached an ATH of $3.09, making it the 3rd largest cryptocurrency on CoinMarketCap.

But since Alonzo’s smart contracts went into effect, the price action has disappointed the bulls. On Jan. 22, ADA formed a new bottom and bounced off the $0.9249 level.

Since then, ADA has been trading relatively flat in the $0.9494 to $1.1653 range, with $1.02 serving as support over the past week.

ADA Price Chart | Source: TradingView

This is because the adoption of dApps has taken longer than expected, analysts say. If done in time, a thriving dApp ecosystem will help reverse the downtrend.

Input-Output CEO Charles Hoskinson says dApps are coming soon. And if all goes according to plan and the network adjusts in size and performance during the basho period, a shift in the price of ADA could occur in 2022.

Cardano’s stats are going strong

Snapshots of major indices in early 2021 and early 2022 show massive growth on the Cardano network.

Strong growth in on-chain metrics, including total wallets, increased by 1,348% to nearly 3 million. The number of daily active addresses increased by 925% to 203,773.

Cardano on-chain and off-chain indicators are growing strongly | Source: Kraken

Further analysis of the daily trading volume and price shows a positive correlation between these two factors. However, this pattern was broken in November 2021 when prices fell while daily transactions continued to rise.

Kraken commented that this could be a positive sign as it shows that network activity remains strong despite the flagging price.

Operation of the ADA network | Source: Kraken

The first dapp went live

The first Cardano DApp went live on MuesliSwap on January 2, 2022, with the total locked value (TVL) reaching $844,500. This has earned Cardano’s TVL a 78th rating on DeFi aggregator platform Lama.

Then DeFi Lama showed two additional DeFi protocols in VyFinance and SundaeSwap. While VyFinance currently has $0 locked assets volume, SundaeSwap has taken TVL by storm with $68.2 million.

TVL on the Cardano network | Source: Defilama

As a result, Cardano rose in rank from 78th to 40th, standing between Songbird and OKExChain and gradually closing the gap to more well-known chains like Algorand and Tezos.

As more DeFi applications hit the network, including popular projects like Ergo and Meld, it won’t be long before Cardano makes the DeFi Lama top 10.

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