Cardano (ADA) Debuts on Coinbase
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Cardano (ADA) may receive another boost after being listed for trading on CoinbasePro.
CoinbasePro was the first obstacle to wider ADA adoption, with the potential for retail listing on Coinbase. As of March 19, ADA is also available for Coinbase users.
ADA was one of the altcoins taking off in 2021. The asset spent the three years of bear market hovering between $0.03 and $0.05, only to take off to peaks close to $1.40. As of March, ADA is now the third largest digital asset by market capitalization, mostly due to the high coin supply.
Renewed interest in crypto trading also led to ADA being added to the Bloomberg trading terminal.
The biggest attraction for ADA is its potential for price gains. The asset has now surpassed its peak from 2017, and may be on track for further gains due to the Coinbase effect.
ADA is also a staking coin, which can be held for rewards. Roughly, staking 10,000 ADA will achieve gains of 400 ADA over the course of a year.
Cardano Promises Still Ahead
The Cardano blockchain had a brief period of hype during the altcoin market in 2017. Back then, US-based buyers flocked to the asset, before access to Binance was cut for most investors.
The Cardano project still has a significant fan base. But the project also faces a problem – it is yet to add functionalities to its blockchain. For most of its history, ADA existed as a simple coin for payments, as well as brief speculative investments.
The project took a good while to issue updates, and the promised functionalities for smart contracts are still not available. The hope is Cardano could add tokenization and smart contracts in 2021, and attract thousands of distributed apps.
The endless delays and updates are the central factor undermining faith in Cardano’s potential. At the same time, Ethereum still carries the biggest load of distributed apps and decentralized finance, along with Binance Smart Chain, TRON and other networks.
Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson made a very bold prediction for “thousands of dapps” on Cardano by mid-2021. But according to DappRadar, not even the biggest networks host thousands of active dapps. It is highly unlikely that Cardano, which has no smart contract layer yet, will attract enough projects and developers to compete with already established ecosystems of gaming, gambling and finance on the blockchain.
This leaves Cardano behind on several big trends, including tokenization, DeFi, and non-fungible tokens. For now, Cardano has failed to fulfill the launch of its next big upgrade, scheduled for the end of February. The Goguen upgrade was supposed to bring Cardano-based tokens and opportunities for outside developers.
Where to Trade ADA
ADA is still most active on the Binance International exchange, and also available through Binance US. ADA can be stored on the Daedalus mobile wallet outside exchanges.
The asset also has a fiat pair on Kraken, available to European users. For now, ADA volumes are relatively small and the market is less liquid compared to other altcoins.
ADA price predictions are still cautious, with the potential for the asset to reach a price of between $3.5 and $8 based on various models for 2021. Chart analysis sees ADA near a golden cross, with a potential takeoff in the coming days, boosted by new CoinbasePro trades starting March 18.
But based on real market liquidity, ADA also poses the risk of high volatility and deep corrections. CoinbasePro will list the coin in four pairs, against BTC, and against fiat currencies USD, EUR and GBP.
More Altcoins Added for Retail Buyers
Access to altcoins became more difficult during the protracted bear market before 2021. But after the breakout of Bitcoin (BTC), hopes were reignited that altcoins may offer significant gains.
For ADA, its high visibility among top 5 coins may give an extra boost. But there are other projects expanding their portfolios with previously neglected altcoins and tokens.
Grayscale Capital recently added a handful of smaller assets to its funds, expanding the retail outreach of its funds.
LINK is the most prominent coin in the new batch of products. Grayscale put serious consideration on ADA in the past few months. The asset was part of a batch of altcoins tested for their potential to be part of OTC-traded investment products.
But for some reason, Grayscale chose to stay away from ADA, at least for now. The asset remains strictly within crypto space, and is yet to prove its mettle among top coins.
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