Cardano Insights Twitter account reported a rising number of Plutus Scripts since April 8, showing active development on the network despite unpleasant market conditions.
Plutus Scripts are the smart contracts of the Cardano network, and the increasing number of contracts on the network is a straight indicator of development activity in contrast to TVL or the capitalization of Cardano.
Expotential growth in Plutus Scripts deployed on main-net can be observed since beginning of May.
— Cardano Blockchain Insights (@InsightsCardano) May 8, 2022
Apparently nobody seemed to have noticed.... so we thought we would make it transprarent. pic.twitter.com/wfgh18ZzsM
According to DefiLIama, the total value of funds locked in various decentralized platforms and smart contracts on Cardano has decreased drastically from more than $300 million at the end of March to less than $200 million at press time.
But while the development activity on Cardano is not stopping and only shows an upward tendency, users are slowly leaving the network due to unpleasant market conditions and a plunge in the popularity of the DeFi industry.
Per Messari data, the number of active Cardano addresses have decreased from almost 450,000 in November to only 100,000 today. Back in March, the number of active users on the Cardano network reached 200,000.
ADA market performance
Due to the turmoil on the cryptocurrency market caused by the massive selloff of Bitcoin, which plunged from almost $40,000 to $33,000, Cardano struggles to show any positive movement as extreme fear covers digital assets all over the market.
Cardano has lost over 20% of its value in the last five days, falling further into the downtrend that began in September 2021. Compared to the ATH, Cardano has lost over 75% of its value, putting it on the list of the least profitable digital assets on the cryptocurrency market.
At press time, ADA trades at $0.69 and has lost 6.5% of its value in the last 24 hours.