Cardano rolled out its Leios Musashi Dojo testnet on June 23, a key step toward a planned 2026 mainnet upgrade. But the launch hasn't sparked a rush of activity. Daily transactions on the network stayed near 25,000 afterward — the same level they've held for the past three months. Active addresses also hit near four-month lows.
Testnet debut, muted response
The Leios Musashi Dojo testnet is meant to test scalability improvements for Cardano. Developers are targeting a full mainnet release next year. So far, though, the on-chain numbers tell a different story from the hype. A brief spike in transactions above 60,000 on June 4-5 was tied to liquidation activity during a sell-off, not organic growth or new adoption.
Staking and address health
Staking metrics look even weaker. Active staking addresses fell to about 5,000 on June 21 — a 120-day low. That's well below the normal range of 7,000-8,000. Fewer people locking up ADA suggests holders aren't rushing to participate in network security or governance, even with a major upgrade on the horizon.
Sentiment remains positive, but accumulation slows
Social sentiment for Cardano stays upbeat. Positive sentiment scored 8.29 versus negative sentiment at 3.13, and the metric spiked to 30 during the testnet launch. Exchange outflows — a measure of coins moving off trading platforms — have been positive every week since early May, indicating accumulation. But the pace is fading. Weekly net outflows dropped from roughly $27 million in mid-May to just $4.53 million for the week ending June 22. No single week of net inflows to exchanges has been recorded since mid-May, which means strong sell pressure hasn't appeared. Still, the shrinking outflows hint that buying interest may be cooling.
The next thing to watch is whether on-chain activity picks up as developers push toward the 2026 mainnet, or if the flat metrics become the new normal.
