A crypto analyst is pushing back on familiar bearish talking points around Cardano, arguing that headline metrics like Total Value Locked (TVL) and daily active users are obscuring what he sees as a quiet structural shift in the network’s fundamentals.
In a recent video dissecting “the real truth about Cardano,” LuckSide Crypto highlighted the largest single-day removal of ADA from exchanges since late December, calling it “huge defense” from what he described as Cardano’s “cult-like” base of long-term holders.
Exchange Outflows, TVL Math & Cardano’s Billion-Dollar Native Asset
The analyst’s most concrete data point: on-chain figures showing the biggest daily exchange supply removal in roughly a month. To him, that signals investors deliberately tightening liquid supply while the broader market still debates whether Cardano deserves its place in the TOP 10 by crypto’s worldwide market cap.
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He took aim at repeated criticisms around TVL, saying Cardano’s numbers are not comparable to rival chains because ADA’s native staking is fully liquid and therefore not counted.
Where aggregators show roughly $192 million in TVL, he argued that if Cardano could include its staked ADA—over 60% of supply—the network would screen closer to an $8 billion TVL and “be one of the largest” in the sector.
Instead of the dollar figure, LuckSide prefers to track TVL in ADA terms. That metric, he noted, has stabilized around 550 million ADA since mid-2023 after pulling back from about 775 million ADA, which he interprets as steady use of dapps rather than collapse in on-chain activity.
LuckSide also pointed to the emergence of a major native token on Cardano, referencing “a billion dollar asset launched” with a current market cap near $967 million. In his view, very few competing chains outside Ethereum and Solana can claim native assets at that scale, and critics are “sleeping on progress.”
Institutions, Uptime & Bridging The Gap Between Narrative & Use Cases
Beyond community metrics, the analyst framed Cardano’s (ADA) long-term bet as an infrastructure play for enterprises and governments. These users, he argued, are less focused on daily active wallets and more on “perfect uptime” security, and predictable performance.
He contrasted Cardano’s record with newer chains that have suffered outages or security incidents, calling those “pretty big red flags” for institutional adoption.
LuckSide underscored that ADA is already appearing in multiple exchange-traded products, saying the asset has “had ETFs filing filings” and features in “almost every single basket ETF both live and applied for.” That presence, he suggested, reflects “huge institutional interest” even as retail traders recycle old skepticism from the last cycle.
On-chain, he cited upgrades in throughput and speed, the launch of a side-chain, and the arrival of native stablecoins, with “major tier 1 stable coins” expected in the early part of this year.
Combined with what LuckSide Crypto describes as a “community of raving fans” pulling coins off exchanges, he believes these developments position ADA to benefit disproportionately if a broader wave of new users eventually arrives.
For investors, the message is blunt: surface-level metrics are weak, but on-chain behavior, institutional positioning, and protocol-level upgrades may be pointing in a different direction. The risk is that the gap between perception and infrastructure use either closes in Cardano’s favor—or never does.
People Also Ask:
Because ADA staking is liquid and not counted in standard TVL figures, some argue that headline TVL dramatically understates the capital actually committed to the network.
He highlighted the largest daily removal of ADA from exchanges since late December, interpreting it as strong holding behavior and reduced sell-side liquidity.
According to the video, ADA appears in multiple existing and proposed crypto basket ETFs, which the analyst reads as evidence of growing institutional attention.
He cited throughput and speed upgrades, a new side-chain, the launch of native stablecoins, and expectations for top-tier stablecoins to arrive early this year.
