Cardano is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies today. A dedicated community of investors and users back this long-standing top-10 cryptocurrency. With smart contracts enabled on Cardano, we’re seeing more DeFi, NFT, and other projects choosing Cardano.
Even with its many advantages, ADA’s price has decreased since the mainnet launched in 2017. After surviving the bear market of 2018-2019, the coin enjoyed a great rally in 2021.
There was about $95 billion in market capitalization when Cardano reached its all-time high at $3.10. On the other hand, some Cardano investors think the upside is much higher, and $100 is a common price target. Can it happen?
Before we decide whether the Cardano coin price can hit $100, let’s talk about how it compares to Ethereum’s market cap.
Cardano – Proof-of-Stake smart contract platform
Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum, launched the Cardano blockchain project in 2015. An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) raised nearly $62 million for Cardano’s development.
The Cardano mainnet launched in September 2017 with limited functionality. Cardano got a series of upgrades over the next few years that improved its decentralization and added smart contracts and Proof-of-Stake.
The Cardano blockchain uses ADA as its native asset. The ADA token helps the network pay transaction fees, incentivizing validators to keep it secure.
Cardano’s ambitious roadmap and methodical development approach are heavily influenced by peer review. The Cardano blockchain’s consensus protocol, Ouroboros, is a provably secure Proof-of-Stake protocol.
Cardano uses the EUTXO (Extended Unspent Transaction Output) model for its transactions, which makes it unique. The smart contract language Cardano uses, Plutus, is suited to formal verification because it’s written in Haskell.
Can Cardano reach $100?
Cardano should be compared to Ethereum if you’re looking for a smart contract platform. Ethereum was worth $550 billion at its peak.
Cardano’s native asset ADA is currently circulating at approximately 34 billion coins. If ADA were $100, Cardano’s market cap would be $3.4 trillion, about six times greater than Ethereum.
| ADA Price | Implied Market Cap |
| $5 | $170 Billion |
| $10 | $340 Billion |
| $20 | $680 Billion |
| $50 | $1.7 Trillion |
| $100 | $3.4 Trillion |
The calculations say there are 34 billion ADA in supply.
Cardano’s low adoption makes it hard to match Ethereum’s market capitalization and surpass it by a factor of 6. Cardano users make about 62,000 transactions daily, while Ethereum users make about 950,000.
The market cap for all cryptocurrencies was $2.9 trillion in November 2021. By January 2023, Cardano will also have $3.4 trillion in market capitalization at $100 per ADA. Apple has a market cap of $2.2 trillion, Saudi Aramco has a market cap of $1.9 trillion, and Microsoft has a market cap of $1.8 trillion.
ADA has a hard time reaching $100 based on these two comparisons alone. An asset with a market cap of $12.7 billion must rise 270x to reach $100. ADA can only reach $100 by reducing its supply. Since there’s no burning mechanism, ADA’s supply will only decrease slightly in the future.
Cardano price prediction – Will Cardano rise?
The price of Cardano still has the potential to rise, even though it seems unlikely in practical scenarios.
The project has a lot of key milestones to hit, so Cardano still has lots of upside potential. There are five major phases in Cardano development, also known as eras. Here’s how they work:
● Byron – Foundation
● Shelley – Decentralization
● Goguen – Smart contracts
● Basho – Scaling
● Voltaire – Governance
While progress along these roadmap phases is sometimes linear, the Cardano project is now in the smart contracts phase. Currently, the project is focusing on improving Cardano’s smart contract capabilities.
Conclusion
Cardano does not have a realistic chance of hitting $100 since that would mean a market cap of about $3.4 trillion. There needs to be more adoption or potential for Cardano to speculate on such a valuation.
Can Cardano go high? Well, some crypto investors do not think Cardano is dead, but if there is a major cryptocurrency bull run shortly, it will reach and surpass its current high. It’s more likely to happen if Cardano developers keep executing their ambitious roadmap.
Even though the crypto market is cyclical, no cryptocurrency is guaranteed to reach its all-time highs. Crypto projects peaked during the 2017 bullish run and still have not matched their all-time highs.
Disclaimer: GeekWire newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content..