Why Cardano Is Surging Amid Bitcoin-Led Crypto Slump

Cardano ADA/USD traded marginally in the green at press-time. ADA outpaced both Bitcoin price BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD, which were in the red.

What Happened: ADA traded 0.15% higher at $1.03 at press time. BTC and ETH traded 7.79% and 8.58% lower at $46,060.24 and $1,469.55 respectively. 

Cardano has found a firm footing after it slid to a weekly low of $0.82 following the news that Venus Protocol community members had approved a proposal to add ADA as a digital asset on Venus. 

VIP-9 has passed and will be executed soon! @Cardano will become an available digital asset on #Venus!

Get started: https://t.co/cAsPHdzOlQ https://t.co/KCgHWRPlfB

— Venus (@VenusProtocol) February 23, 2021

Other developments that have been propelling ADA higher include the announcement Thursday from Dubai-based FD7 Ventures that it plans to sell $750 million worth of BTC over the next 30 days to buy positions in ADA and Polkadot DOT/USD. 

Why It Matters: Open interest for ADA futures rose to $580 million pushing past Litecoin LTC/USD to become the third-largest derivatives market, Cointelegraph reported. 

This month, Cardano transformed its blockchain to a multiasset network akin to ETH after a hard fork.

This is one of the factors cited as driving the price movement in ADA, as per Cointelegraph. The cryptocurrency has risen 484.06% since the year began.

See also: How to Buy Cardano (ADA)

Ethereum-killers such as ADA or Solana SOL/USD are attracting attention for their DeFi utility or smart-contract functionality.