Last year was a big one for the Cardano ecosystem! Across the board, we saw impressive growth, from rising prices to a surge in daily transactions and a booming DeFi space.

A deep dive report from Messari, a well-regarded market intelligence platform, reveals just how well Cardano performed last year, especially considering the generally positive crypto market. The report really highlights Cardano’s standout performance in the last quarter of 2024, and its overall wins compared to the previous year.

Price Rally Fuels Impressive Growth

ADA’s price absolutely took off in the final quarter of 2024, jumping by a whopping 126.2%! It climbed from $0.374 to a peak of $1.327, a level not seen in four years, before settling back down to around $0.844 at the quarter’s end. This price surge completely wiped out losses from the second and third quarters, pushing its year-over-year growth to a strong 42.2%.

It wasn’t just the price that was moving; activity within the Cardano ecosystem also saw a significant uptick, showing real user engagement. The average number of daily active addresses on the network in Q4 reached 42,900, a massive 57.8% increase compared to the previous quarter.

With more active addresses, it’s no surprise that people were transacting more on Cardano. The average daily transaction count hit 71,500 in the last quarter, which was the highest it reached all year.

Unsurprisingly, the surge in transactions also meant more fees were generated on the network. Specifically, Cardano raked in $1.79 million in fees in Q4, a huge 253.8% leap from Q3. This impressive growth meant the ecosystem earned 94.9% more in fees compared to the entire year leading up to December 31, 2023.

DeFi and Staking See Big Gains

The amount locked up in decentralized finance (DeFi) on Cardano ecosystem also experienced a significant surge last year. After jumping 94% in Q4 to reach $448.9 million, Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem finished the year strong, exceeding its 2023 value by 19.8%.

The total value of staked assets in USD also shot up last year, showing a 36.5% year-over-year increase. Around $18.4 billion was staked on the network in Q4 alone, a whopping 117.4% climb from the quarter before.

Interestingly, when we look at these staking numbers in ADA instead of USD, the picture is a bit different compared to 2023. A 4% decrease in ADA terms suggests that the USD gains were primarily driven by the rising price of ADA itself, rather than a significant increase in the amount of ADA being staked.

Other Notable Wins

Beyond the numbers, the Cardano ecosystem hit some impressive milestones last year too. Notably, the network achieved full decentralization with the Chang Upgrade in September 2024. This new governance system puts the power directly in the hands of ADA holders, allowing them to shape the future of the ecosystem through Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) and Delegated Representatives (DReps).

Cardano’s sidechain Midnight also went live on its test network after years in development. Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s founder, mentioned that this Layer-2 scaling solution will bring multichain capabilities to the Cardano world.

Furthermore, the Cardano ecosystem implemented the Ouroboros Peras update in October. This significant upgrade is designed to speed up transaction times on the network, aiming to match the speed of Solana while still maintaining Cardano’s strong focus on decentralization.