Cardano Just Delivered Two Bullish Signals at TOKEN2049 as ADA Rebounds

Despite the major leg down at the end of the business week, on-chain data showed that the daily active addresses on the Cardano network surged to roughly 1.7 times September’s weekday average following the launch of a new token standard.

At the same time, Cardano reached a substantial milestone in its bid for a .ada internet domain.

On-Chain Activity Pumps

Data from Santiment Intelligence shows that Cardano recorded approximately 27,500 daily active addresses on October 7 and almost as many a day later, which is significantly higher than the average weekday level seen in September. The analysts tested whether the broader market decline could explain the increase but found that active addresses on Bitcoin and Ethereum remained at or below their respective September norms during the same period.

The timing coincided with the October 7 launch of CIP-0113, Cardano’s new programmable token standard. The Cardano Foundation explained that the standard lets issuers of regulated assets such as stablecoins and tokenized funds build requirements, including KYC, sanctions checks, and transfer restrictions, directly into native Cardano tokens.

It went live following multiple independent security audits and has been recognized by the Capital Markets and Technology Association (CMTA), CF said.

Despite this uptick in activity, Santiment warned that it remains below Cardano’s late-August local high. It remains to be seen now whether this increase survives beyond the initial launch period, especially as ADA’s price rally has cooled. The asset recently soared to a multi-month peak of $0.28, where it was rejected, and the subsequent leg down drove it below $0.24 on Friday. However, it’s up by over 7% in the past 24 hours again.

New Cardano Milestone

The activity spike coincided with another potentially important development for the broader Cardano ecosystem. CF revealed at TOKEN2049 earlier this week that its application for the .ada generic top-level domain has advanced to the next phase of ICANN’s New gTLD Program. The proposal previously received approximately 75% support from the Cardano community through an on-chain Governance Action.

If approved, .ada would operate as a genuine internet top-level domain, similar to extensions such as .com or .org. CF believes it could eventually support simplified wallet addresses, decentralized identity integrations, and domain tokenization. However, ICANN still needs to assess the application’s technical, financial, and operational readiness, with successful domains from the current round expected to be delegated between 2028 and 2030.