Important events
Nov 252022
A harbinger of doom?
There’s a breakdown of a leading Cardano stablecoin project juuuust as Cardano announces the launch of its own stablecoin.- Cardano DeFi Project Ardana has had to halt development. Ardana was once a promising project and was just a year into development after raising $10m last year in a funding round led by Three Arrows Capital, who ICYMI are now bankrupt.
- Ardana cited funding and timeline concerns as the reason, and its Tether paired DANA token lost 83% yesterday to hit its lowest ever price. Cardano’s ADA token doesn’t seem too stressed, marginally down over Thanksgiving and trading flat for the week.
- That being said, the timing could be better given Cardano only a few days ago announced that its own Djed stablecoin will be launching in 2023 – it’s being referred to as an over-collateralized algorithmic stablecoin, backed by excess collateral in the form of crypto in a reserved.
Illustration by TradingView
Oct 172022
The layer 1s are losing steam
As the crypto market continues to hum its bearish tune, the layer 1s of the world are feeling particularly squeezed.- Some of the biggest layer 1 tokens were leading the losses last week, including Solana which dropped by almost 10% and Avalanche which slipped by more than 7%. Cardano has been a standout in the declining crowd though, plummeting more than 13% since last week.
- Cardano recently executed one of its biggest ever upgrades, the Vasil hard fork, which was a highly anticipated event in the market. Its losses have come despite that though, mirroring declines seen in Ethereum after its own historic hard fork. ADA’s been one of the worst performing cryptos over the past six weeks, sinking over 25%.
- Almost every single major crypto closed last week in the red, but there were a few bright spots amid the darkness. The native token of Quant went against the trend with significant gains of over 46% since last week, though market experts are already warning the fun may be over as profit takers get tempted to cash out. What goes up must come down, we suppose.
Michael Förtsch / Unsplash
Oct 112022
Picking up the pitchforks
Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson got himself into hot water recently after touching a nerve for the Ripple community amid its SEC court battle.- Creator of Cardano Charles Hoskinson faced a backlash from the Ripple community after tweeting that their claims of corruption in the SEC were irrelevant. The community stated that one official, William Hinman, had a conflict of interest with ETH while in office.
- Despite the backlash, Hoskinson actually agreed that Ripple is not a security and described its ongoing case with the SEC as “absurd”, handing out a couple of hot takes at the same time – he argues that speculating on oil doesn’t make it a security and that most cryptocurrencies should be no different.
- Ripple has been battling with the SEC since its court case began in 2020, but recent successes in the legal battle have seen XRP rise by more than 35% over the last month. If Ripple emerges the victor, the SEC will have been dealt a painful blow in their campaign to define cryptos as securities and the impact will be felt across the industry – so stay tuned.
Kanchanara / Unsplash
Sep 222022
A big forking deal
It’s ‘major upgrade’ szn for blockchains as Cardano digs into the trend with its Vasil hardfork while investors are still digesting the Merge.- Cardano’s ‘Vasil’ hardfork launched today in one of the most significant upgrades to the protocol yet. Apparently, the 5-day upgrade will make transactions faster, cheaper, more developer friendly and “more sophisticated” from the get-go with more complex smart contracts – users will be hoping the improvements are worth the wait after two delays.
- ADA’s price has been relatively stable in the run up to the hard fork, but it also doesn’t seem to be enjoying any gains from the upgrade’s success. The network hasn’t got the same DeFi star-power as competitors like Ethereum, with only $79m locked in its platforms compared to Ethereum’s $30bn, but there’s potential for that to change.
- How’s this different to the Ethereum Merge? Well, the Vasil upgrade didn’t have anywhere near as much hype – which is prolly a good thing given all that buzz has quickly fizzled with double digit losses of nearly 20% for ETH since the Merge, and even proof-of-work tokens getting swept up in the tailwinds with ETC down by almost 28%. Will the same fate await Cardano?
Sep 142022
An institutional inflows rush
Cardano looks poised to become a thorn in the side of Bitcoin as its popularity with institutional investors grows.- Institutional investor bets on Cardano-based products quadrupled last week, coinciding with the rapidly rising popularity of shorting Bitcoin. BTC-related investment products saw outflows of $13m last week while those of ADA saw inflows of $400k… is the layer 1 chain stealing Bitcoin’s thunder?
- ADA followed wider price-drops in May, but the network’s usage is growing. The chain has seen a pretty massive 368% increase in daily on-chain transactions YTD, which has prolly got something to do with the steadily growing number dApps on the ecosystem.
- The chain might have even more good news around the corner. Its long awaited Vasil Hard Fork will reportedly lower fees and increase transaction speeds, and is expected to go live September 22. Altho, it's safe to say the eyes of most investors will be glued to the Ethereum Merge which is expected to go live tomorrow. Stay tuned for more on that.
Aug 252022
You only hard fork once
Cardano has an exciting day of testnet success that only partially manages to divert attention from a recent disaster.- Cardano’s Vasil hard fork is almost ready to happen after multiple delays. This week, a new public testnet called “YoloNet” met the 75% threshold, basically confirming a successful hard fork for Vasil – there will be another pre-production test and then the full Vasil upgrade will happen on the main net some time in mid-September.
- It comes in the midst of a publicity problem for the blockchain that saw one of its testnet failures get leaked and cause crypto Twitter to erupt into speculation over what’s going on. Despite founder Charles Hoskinson getting up on YouTube and explaining it was actually a v small deal, it has contributed to a fair amount of FUD for Cardano.
- Its native ADA token has yet to recover from last week’s crypto sell off, which saw the token’s price plummet 19% for its worst week since May, now trading only a few cents away from an all-time low. Another delay to the hard fork could make things a whole lot worse tho so hopefully this isn’t another false alarm.
Yolonet
Jul 212022
Devs just love Cardano
In spite of all the recent attention afforded to its rival Ethereum, Cardano is apparently leading the way in development activity.- Cardano is comfortably leading development activity rn, at least according to market intel platform Santiment. The platform uses the metric of Development Activity which tracks the number of GitHub events that the project organization generated. This is seen as a more intimate way of tracking development, focusing on the number of code pushes and issue interactions.
- High-scoring Dev Activity suggests a project is trying to BeReal about its business and vision, according to Santiment. They list three takings: a) the project is pretty serious, b) the project will ship new features in the future, and c) it’s less likely to be just an exit scam.
- ADA is up 9% this week, still wavering around the $0.50 as investors speculate whether or not the upcoming Vasil hardfork will up the network’s game enough to compete with Ethereum. Because while Cardano is clearly popular with developers, it has yet to match the dominance Ethereum has in the altcoin space.
Jun 152022
Cardano bundles up
It seems the crypto winter is upon us – now the question is: whose coat is warm enough to make it to the other side?- ADA has dropped 7% this week, serving somewhat as a silver lining for Cardano fans considering Bitcoin has already dropped 24% in that time, while Ethereum has tanked 29%. As alt coins usually perform particularly badly against the front runners during bear markets, ADA seems like a bit of an outlier atm.
- In the last month, ADA has gained 38% on ETH and 14% on BTC. XRP has also proven its strength against market leaders in the last month, up 34%.
- Cardano has a major hard fork at the end of June, so ADA holding a fairly solid line recently may have something to do with investors looking to get in before the launch. Called the “Vasil” hardfork, it’s set to make the Cardano blockchain quicker and more scalable.
Michael Förtsch / Unsplash
Jun 092022
Dishing out gains
Cardano gets a satellite to orbit its ecosystem, helping native token ADA continue its green week.- Satellite TV big-shot DISH Network is building on Cardano, with plans to offer its clients a platform to earn loyalty-based tokens through minting them on the crypto’s blockchain. It also aims to create a decentralized application to identify its users.
- Is blockchain tech gonna emerge in telecommunications? DISH clearly thinks so – the creation of these tokens is just the first step. Ultimately, the satellite company hopes for it to become part of the larger “CRONUS project” – AKA Input Output and DISH’s combined effort to make blockchain tech a central part of DISH’s ecosystem.
- ADA is up over 15% this week and was one of the only cryptos in the green on Wednesday. Input Output (they develop Cardano) announced on Monday that 1k new projects were building on the network, with NFT-related projects top of the list. It seems these projects are flooding into the ecosystem to get in before the Vasil hard fork later this month.
May 162022
A fork in the road for investors
Cardano, infamous for its delays, is on course to release its hard fork on time - and whales are getting inb4 the hype.- Rejoice, Cardano fans – Vasil is on schedule to launch on June 29, with parent company Input Output confident a hard fork of its testnet should go live before the end of May. On a side note, this also means it’s likely to launch before Ethereum’s highly anticipated merge.
- Amid the news, whale transactions have hit a four-month high. Despite ADA falling to a pretty ugly $0.50, on-chain data showed whale addresses with 1 to 10m ADA have been stockpiling almost 200m additional ADA in the last five weeks, with a big spike in whale transactions coming as the token hit new lows.
- Off the back of its hard fork, Cardano will be hoping for an influx of adoption that will increase liquidity on the network. Plutus (Cardano’s smart contract platform) will be getting a serious upgrade, allowing for greater speed and scalability for projects wanting to build on the blockchain.
Michael Förtsch / Unsplash
May 052022
The Djed-i Order
Cardano wants to add a stablecoin of its own to the ranks, stepping up training for up its Djed token in preparation for the task.- Cardano has hopped on the stablecoin bandwagon with its Djed token, which went to testnet on Wednesday, getting ADA fans excited that soon they’ll have a dollar-pegged coin to use on its DeFi space. The stablecoin will be powered by COTI, a well-integrated FinTech company on the Cardano network.
- Djed – or DJ-Ed (we don’t know) – is an algorithmic stablecoin, similar to Tron’s recent USDD release. The algorithmic mechanism will be deployed using smart contracts to maintain its dollar peg and will be backed with both ADA and a separate reserve coin ‘Shen’ to ensure stability.
- ADA pumped 16.5% on Wednesday after the news dropped, while managing to carry its sista COTI up 15% too – though there are prolly larger factors helping push the token up too, like rate hikes. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson even made an appearance on Fox Business earlier this week, spreading the word of the crypto’s “tremendous growth”.
Quoteinspector
Apr 272022
I like big blocks and I cannot lie
Cardano continues to be the hard worker on the block, supercharging its network speed with a new upgrade.- Block sizes have increased by 10% on Cardano’s network. Don’t jump out of your seats just yet – we need to explain what that means first. In ELI5 terms, it’ll mean more transactions on the network can be squeezed into every block written on the blockchain, making the whole process a lot faster and efficient.
- Investors will see this as good news, especially for the network’s muscle. Throughputs (transactions-per-sec) and the general performance of dApps will improve, encouraging more volume and liquidity on top of what it handles currently.
- ADA was down almost 8% on Tuesday, even with those bigger blocks, but Cardano fans are prolly hoping for better days with the network’s Vasil hard fork on the way. It’ll increase throughputs further and improve the performance, encouraging a wider range of DeFi apps into the ecosystem.
Quantitatives / Unsplash
Apr 202022
Getting ready for the Vasil hard fork
Cardano seems to be enjoying the smart contract boom, with 400 new projects flooding into its ecosystem to get on the Vasil upgrade hype.- Smart contracts were officially launched in Sept 2021 after the Alonzo hard fork, and the Cardano ecosystem now boasts over 900 projects on its network. With the Vasil hard fork set for Q2, the crypto has seen a lot of projects join the blockchain to be inb4 the forkin’.
- Vasil is set to build on Alonzo’s hard work. This latest upgrade to the mainnet hopes to make it even easier for dApps, smart contracts, and DEXs to scale onto the Cardano network. IOHK (the parent company of Cardano) also announced improvements to ‘pipelining’ – which, simply put, means speedier transactions via better throughputs.
- ADA crept up 1.6% on Tuesday. Anticipation for the Alonzo hard fork saw a two-month bull run starting in July that sent the price of ADA up 190%, reaching a new ATH of $3.10. Vasil is set to launch on June 29, and something tells us investors will want a repeat of last year.
Apr 072022
Blockchain polishes its shoes for school
The Cardano Foundation (TCF) gets out the textbooks as it links up with the University of Zurich to build the network to the top of the class.- TCF is partnering with the Blockchain Center of the University of Zurich to develop the Cardano blockchain. The pair will collab on homework that will look to bring about the adoption of Cardano-based tech and study economic activities on the network.
- It’s not the first time Cardano has put its head down. It’s one of the most peer-assessed in the game – only last year the network announced a deal in Ethiopia that plans to give digital identity to five million teachers and students.
- However, Cardano’s native token ADA was in detention with the rest of crypto on Wednesday, falling 10%. It’s not all doom and gloom though – the number of Cardano wallets grew an impressive 500k since January, now over the 3m mark.
Quantitatives / Unsplash
Apr 042022
It was (not) a pleasure to burn
Amid the Shiba Inu burning frenzy, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson responds to the proposition of throwing ADA on the fire.🔍 Key points:
- Cardano users won’t be seeing any mass burnings any time soon. In response to more rumors of an ADA burn-fest, Hoskinson surfaced from his weekend slumber to tell advocates to “sit on a rock, look at the sunset, and contemplate your existence”. Well, if we’ve ever seen a putdown…
- Why burn when you can earn? Burning mechanisms send tokens into dead wallets, thus increasing the value by lowering the circulating supply. Hoskinson, however, sees it simply as ‘destroying money.’ Instead, Cardano offers staking platforms for users to earn interest, but as the old adage goes: to destroy is easier than to create.
- ADA is looking pretty flameproof in the market currently, rising a modest 5% over the weekend. The token has seen some degree of recovery since the pretty chilly low of $0.78 in March, pumping 53% to its favorite $1.20 range – could Snoop Dogg's latest NFT deal with the blockchain be helping the token feel Young, Wild & Free?
Mar 312022
Wave hello to some new funding
Cardano’s been on somewhat of a bull run recently as institutional investors stake their claim, and Wave Financial reckons it’s worth investing in.🔍 Key points:
- Institutional investment in Cardano has been popping off. The network has seen a 50x increase in its large transaction volume in 2022 so far, while total addresses have risen from 3.5m to 5m.
- Wave Financial wants to get in on the fun. The software company has just launched a $100m Yield Fund that’s designed to offer liquidity to platforms launched on the Cardano ecosystem.
- The token recently reclaimed the $1 mark and is up 25% in March for its first month in the green since August last year. Some of the attention can probs be attributed to its Vasil Hard Fork in June – the crypto has rallied significantly following its last three hard forks.
Illustration by TradingView
Mar 252022
Coinbase raises the stakes
Coinbase gives Cardano staking its blessing, making it easier for the retail traders to pile into the blockchain.🔍 Key points:
- Cardano’s native token ADA is up over 30% for the week as it breaks a months-long downtrend, boosted largely by Wednesday’s Coinbase-induced gains of nearly 14%.
- Coinbase has added support for ADA staking rewards on the platform as it works towards building its staking portfolio, pointing to Cardano’s "flexible, sustainable, and scalable" blockchain design as reason for its choice.
- Cardano got another boost of confidence from Grayscale earlier this week. The investment company unveiled its “Smart Contract Platform ex Ethereum Fund” on Tuesday to give people access to the best smart contract tech out there, and Cardano is one of the 7 included.
Ivan Radic / Flickr
Feb 232022
Cardano sees some transaction action
It appears that transaction volume on the Cardano blockchain is booming as crypto makes a slender recovery.Key points:
- Cardano’s daily transaction volume has surged to $17.04bn in the last 24 hours, flying past Ethereum’s (ETHUSD) daily activity to trail only Bitcoin (BTCUSD).
- The launch of the SundaeSwap DEX on the Cardano blockchain has meant that February has seen an explosion in on-chain activity, with transaction volume hitting highs of $31bn on Saturday – on the downside though, the launch has also caused crazy congestion on the network.
- Its native token was on the up and up yesterday too, along with the broader crypto market, after starting the week on a negative note. Cardano lifted 3.6% on Tuesday, Bitcoin bumped up 3.2%, and Ethereum gained 2.7% – all three are gaining in Wednesday morning along wth other tokens after $400bn was wiped off the crypto market cap in the last week.
Illustration by TradingView
Jan 242022
A melting SundaeSwap
Cardano sees its first decentralized crypto exchange launch, but SundaeSwap’s debut tastes a lot like Rocky Road.- The network tumbled 11% on Friday, marking its worst week since May after declining over 20% amid a crypto market sell-off.
- SundaeSwap went live on Thursday as the first DEX on the Cardano platform, but people complained that their transactions were failing and they weren’t getting the Sundae tokens they swapped for. It wasn’t actually SundaeSwap’s fault though…
- The backlash was for Cardano. It was inundated with transactions, but apparently the network couldn’t handle the volume and came to something of a halt – it faced similar issues when Miniswap tried (and failed) to launch in September.
Noaa / Unsplash
Jan 182022
A not-so-lazy Sundae
Cardano gains some weight after indulging in a hot SundaeSwap this weekend.- Its token ballooned 24% over Sunday and Monday, erasing any of the losses it has endured this year in the face of a wider crypto sell-off.
- Momentum is building for the launch of SundaeSwap on Thursday, which will represent the first DeFi exchange on the Cardano blockchain and will boost its wider utility.
- Some say Cardano is a better bet than Bitcoin (BTCUSD) or Ethereum (ETHUSD) at the moment after it has outperformed the OGs for most of this year and is seeing its transaction volume come close to topping Ethereum.