A privacy-focused stablecoin tied to Circle has quietly become part of the story behind Cardano’s recent jump in decentralized finance activity. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s Valuation Model Hints At $500K Cycle Average, Analyst Says The token, called USDCx, was brought into the Cardano ecosystem earlier this year as part of a broader push to grow the network’s financial infrastructure — and the numbers that followed have drawn attention across the crypto community. Cross-Chain Ambitions Drive Capital Into Cardano Protocols Data shows Cardano’s total value locked — a measure of assets committed to DeFi services like lending and liquidity pools — climbed from 447 million ADA on February 26 to 552 million ADA by March 10. That’s a gain of roughly 23% in under two weeks, according to stake pool operator Dave, who shared the figures on X