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Cardano ($ADA) has reclaimed the eighth spot by market capitalization, surpassing Tron (TRX) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
The "Ethereum killer" is currently valued at $33.5 billion, which places it slightly above the two aforementioned tokens.
However, the token is still far from reclaiming its much-coveted top 5 placement. BNB is currently the fifth-biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $115 billion.
Former top 3 coin
At the height of the cryptocurrency mania of early 2018, $ADA, which was a novel project back then, managed to break into the top 5. Back then, however, its market cap was considerably smaller ($18.5 billion compared to today's $33.5 billion). Back then, $XRP was the second-biggest cryptocurrency, racing ahead of Ethereum (ETH).
However, $ADA suffered a brutal drop during the 2018 bear market. By the end of the year, the token exited the top 10, with its market cap ultimately shrinking to just $895 million.
The token ended up spending much of 2019 in the #10-#13 range before gaining a foothold in the top 10.
During the 2021 bull run, $ADA ended up reclaiming its spot in the top 5.
In fact, $ADA became the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in early September 2021. It had a market capitalization of a staggering $94 billion ahead of the launch of the Alonzo hard fork, which finally brought smart contracts to the popular platform.
Cardano's outperformance
$ADA has managed to substantially outperform other major cryptocurrencies over the past week.
It is up by nearly 14% while $XRP, for comparison, has plunged by 7% during the same period of time.
The most recent surge comes amid strong network growth and robust developer activity.
However, it should be noted that $ADA is still down a staggering 71% from its all-time high of $3.09 that was logged almost four years ago.