The official community monitoring page of the Cardano blockchain network has just announced that active wallets of its native token ADA have crossed two million unique addresses.

The announcement bears a mark of celebration for the blockchain network that was recently ranked third but has fallen two places to now be the fifth among blockchains by market capitalization. It indicates that despite the market swings, the Cardano community is expanding and adoption is growing.

The last time the active ADA wallets metric hit a significant milestone was in May when it was announced that they had crossed one million wallet addresses.

The price of ADA has been quite stagnant after it surged to a new high of around $3 in September on the back of the Alonzo hardfork upgrade that brought smart contract capabilities. It is currently down around 36 percent since then, having closed October with around seven percent negative returns. 

However, the blockchain has been busy building out its platform behind the scenes. Recently, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the development arm of the blockchain, announced the completion of the sixth round of its developer and community support program, Project Catalyst. In this round, they funded 151 projects and 21 community challenges, bringing the total number of projects funded so far to 300 in the last year.

Significantly, the network saw the launch of its first NFT decentralized marketplace that launched on the 30th of October. Already, the developers of the marketplace have noted that their community is growing rapidly as they have gained more than 100x increased followership on social media in recent times. According to their official press release, the growth is almost becoming a problem as they are close to being over-subscribed.

What’s next for Cardano and ADA?

IOHK has revealed that they are gearing up to usher in a new era in the blockchain’s roadmap, the Babbage era. The Babbage era is named after Charles Babbage, a mathematician credited to be the “father of the computer,” and will introduce several new developments including language upgrades for Plutus, further decentralization, and proposed performance improvements to the blockchain.

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, is also currently playing emissary for the blockchain network in Africa in a drive to boost the adoption of Cardano on the continent. Hoskinson’s tour of the continent will see him meeting with key figures in South Africa, Kenya, Burundi, and Zanzibar.