Following a series of significant network developments over the past few months, Cardano is already being pushed to its processing limits. Its blockchain load has been above 90% for the past eight days – the longest period of time it has ever maintained at this level.
Filling Up Cardano’s Blocks
The term “blockchain load” refers to how much memory space within the average Cardano block is being filled. A 100% load means that blocks are at their absolute limit, whereas 0% means they’re void of activity.
According to data from Cardano Blockchain Insights, blockchain load increased on January 14, from 55.2% to 91.8% on the 16th. This increased load has so far held steady above 90% since January 19. This includes an all-time high for blockchain load on the 21st, at 94.1%.
In order to meet rising network demand, Cardano announced an increase in block size by 12.5% two months ago.
While this might signal that Cardano is struggling to scale, it at least shows that blockchain adoption is growing rapidly. For example, traffic has increased significantly since September, when the network finally introduced smart contracts.
Strangely enough, Cardano’s price has been down ever since the Alonzo upgrade. Peaking at over $3 in September, ADA now trades at a sobering $1.05, over 60% off its high. Over the latter part of last year, Cardano saw much of its spotlight as an eco-friendly smart contract platform stolen by Solana, which surpassed Cardano in November.
Amid the recent market slump, however, ADA has held up better than Solana, maintaining a market cap of over $33 billion.
Comparing Scaling Efforts
While Cardano is opting for a block-size increase, Bitcoin and Ethereum are taking other methods to ensure scalable futures as adoption grows.
Bitcoin scales through layers – primarily the Lightning Network – to process off-chain transactions and later settle them in groups on the mainchain. Ethereum is exploring similar layered solutions like rollups, alongside complex validation techniques like sharding.
Bitcoiners effectively rejected increases to block size in 2017 by refusing to adopt SegWit 2X. This solution is believed to hurt network decentralization.
