Investing.com – With a gain of over 12% in the last 24 hours and over 30% in the last week, Cardano, the fifth largest cryptocurrency buy market cap, is by the far best performing cryptocurrency in the top 10.

Recall that Cardano (ADA) was trading around $1.26 at the start of the weekend, to reach a peak of $1.54 this morning, show an increase of 22% in the last 48 hours.

“The Metaverse Arrives on the Cardano Blockchain”

The factors behind Cardano’s outperformance compared to most other cryptocurrencies remain unclear, but it can be noted that the latest information regarding the token concerns the official announcement of Pavia, Cardano’s metaverse and NFT gaming project, via a widely circulated press release with the catchy title “The Metaverse Arrives on the Cardano Blockchain”.

Pavia is a gaming NFT metaverse that positions itself as a direct competitor to the most popular crypto metaverses such as Sandbox and Decentraland. The Pavia project was created in September 2021 and the first sale of land plots by random allocation was announced a month later.

According to the press release published on Friday, Pavia.io has a total of around 100,000 plots, each minted as a unique NFT with precise coordinates.

60% of these plots of land would have been sold between October and November 2021 and a final sale is scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.

The Pavia website, which points out the success of the project depends on the support of the Cardano community, claims that there are currently 8,300 registered plot owners.

“This digital world will only succeed with the love and support of the Cardano community. There are now over 8,300 land owners in Pavia.io. Each land parcel is a uniquely numbered Cardano NFT (CNFT) based on coordinates within Pavia.io.”

Note that the Pavia metaverse will use its own cryptocurrency, named Pavia, and not Cardano. The bullish reaction to this news (if the rise can be attributed to it) is therefore more the result of the association of the name Cardano with the concept of metaverse than of the anticipation of increased demand for ADA.

Cardano technical analysis and thresholds to watch

On an hourly chart, Cardano broke through short-term resistance at $1.42 last night which appears to have renewed the buying interest. At the time of writing, ADA/USD has also broken above the psychological $1.50 threshold, constituting a bullish signal.

In this context, the next important target to consider is the zone composed of the 27th December peak at $1.5910 and the psychological threshold of $1.60. On the downside, initial support is seen at the $1.40-1.42 zone.