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.