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In today's issue: Ethereum isn't the only one getting an upgrade.
Cardano, another contender for the L1 throne, is preparing for its long-awaited upgrade called "Vasil," scheduled for this Thursday, September 22.
Sure, Cardano has great technology, but is anyone actually building on it?
Read on to learn about the Top Projects Building on Cardano and our thoughts on investing in it. |
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| | | Must Read Today’s most important story for crypto investors. |
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Cardano's Vasil Upgrade: What to Expect (Cardano): Though the upgrade has been delayed several months, it's currently scheduled for September 22, just a week after the Ethereum Merge.
While the Ethereum upgrade brought a massive shift from proof of work (PoW) to proof of stake (PoS), Cardano already runs on PoS, so the new upgrade basically makes transactions faster and cheaper.
ADA investors don't need to do anything. Like The Merge, the transition should be seamless. For a play-by-play, bookmark the official update page from Input Output, the blockchain development that works on Cardano.
Investor takeaway: Cheaper, faster blockchains are always welcome, but in the end it's about the users, and users will only come to Cardano if there are great apps to attract them. Read on. |
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| | | Top Projects Building on Cardano by Danielle Greving |
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Summary: Cardano is one of the top Layer 1 blockchains. It was launched in 2017 as a more efficient, scalable, and sustainable alternative to proof of work blockchains like bitcoin. To find out whether Cardano is a good long-term investment (along with its companion token ADA) we researched the top projects building on it.
At Bitcoin Market Journal, we believe the top L1 blockchains will be among the best long-term crypto investments. Think of them as the “operating systems” or “base layer” of crypto.
We also believe L1 leadership can be measured by the quality and quantity of projects building on these chains.
Today, Cardano is one of the biggest L1s behind bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB. As of this writing, the platform’s native token (ADA) has a market cap of around $15 billion. This puts it in the top ten cryptocurrencies.
Cardano takes a slow and careful approach to development, making sure each update is extensively tested and peer reviewed. While Cardano is slower to market, it also has time to study weaknesses of other blockchains and find applicable solutions.
While Cardano was slow in adding smart contract functionality (it was only implemented in September 2021), it has a leg up on other L1s in scalability and security. That's why many projects choose to use Cardano over Ethereum for their smart contracts.
Here are some of the leading smart contract projects on Cardano: |
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WingRiders (WRT)
WingRiders is an automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) powered by VacuumLabs, a respected developer in the Cardano space.
It’s now the leading DeFi protocol on the Cardano blockchain in total value locked, holding 42.53% dominance of the chain with $134.3M locked. WingRiders allows investors to swap, stake, provide liquidity to pools, and deposit funds into yield farms.
The decentralized exchange has already brought many firsts to the Cardano ecosystem. It was the first to:
Bring Ethereum and bitcoin to the blockchain. Bring stablecoins to Cardano. Offer stake pool voting where liquidity providers can vote on which of their pools will stake ADA. Offer direct hardware wallet integrations. Integrate with 3rd party dapps.
WingRider’s governance token (WRT) allows token holders to vote on key decisions regarding the project’s development. |
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Minswap (MIN)
Minswap is a multi-pool DEX built on Cardano. It was the first multi-pool DEX on the blockchain, announcing its debut on the Cardano mainnet in March 2022.
Minswap’s multi-pool allows users to deposit liquidity in exchange for rewards in multiple crypto assets. Minswap offers various liquidity pools to enable users to route their trades through the most efficient pools. It later plans to turn this multi-pool trading feature into a DEX aggregator.
It also plans to develop features that will help the Cardano ecosystem as a whole, like an IFO (Initial Farm Offering) launchpad that will allow other projects to safely launch tokens without having to worry about automated bots scooping up tokens instead of real users. |
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SundaeSwap (SUNDAE)
SundaeSwap is an automated liquidity provision protocol and decentralized exchange on Cardano that enables native token (SUNDAE) and ADA exchanges. Through SundaeSwap, users can stake, swap, lend, and borrow in a decentralized manner.
SundaeSwap uses AMMs, which create a liquidity pool consisting of two assets. Users help to create these pools by providing a balanced amount of two assets into the pool, from which an investor can submit a trade for one of the two assets in the pool. In turn, the price of both assets will increase or decrease, and a new market rate for both assets gets calculated, so instead of filling a buy-or-sell order for another trader, the trader buys or sells directly within the pool.
SundaeSwap also operates on a permissionless, decentralized system, meaning the protocol is available for open use and there are no restrictions on who can use the protocol. With internet access and a Cardano wallet, anyone can add or remove liquidity from a pool and swap crypto. |
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MuesliSwap (MILK)
MuesliSwap was the first native, scalable DEX on Cardano, launching on the mainnet in November 2021.
MuesliSwap distinguishes itself from other trading approaches by the use of Cardano’s transaction model. This extended UTXO model allows projects to use the order book model as a decentralized exchange. This means MuesliSwap supports order limits, giving you complete control over your investments.
MuesliSwap also offers low fees, fast transaction settlements, and protection against frontrunning. |
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Lending Pond
Lending Pond allows users to take out ADA loans by posting NFTs as collateral. The NFTs posted need to be worth a certain percentage more than the ADA requested so the loan is overcollateralized.
Borrowers can set their interest rates and degrees of over-collateralization. Lenders can review the offers and choose to finance deals they find acceptable. NFTs are returned to borrowers if their loans are repaid on time.
This allows borrowers a unique way to leverage liquidity without the use of credit checks or KYC. |
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How many projects are building on Cardano?
Over 1,000 projects are being built on the Cardano blockchain. The Cardano network consistently outperforms competitors like Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche in the number of Github commits per month. Github is a metric used to measure a blockchain network’s development activity.
Most of the projects (around 40%) being built on Cardano are NFT projects. Next come social and community projects, then metaverse and gaming protocols.
Can Cardano Catch Ethereum?
Cardano has positioned itself as a promising alternative to Ethereum, but Ethereum continues to build its competitive moat, especially after its switch to proof of stake.
While progress on Cardano has been slow, it’s also been steady. The successful "Alonzo" upgrade in 2021 gave Cardano smart contract functionality. Next will be the anticipated "Vasil" upgrade, which will boost the network’s performance and scalability. Vasil’s testnet rollout was a success, and it’s scheduled to go live on the mainnet this week.
Investor Takeaway
Many exciting projects are being built on Cardano, but the most successful apps are related to buying and selling tokens. Disappointingly, many look like Ethereum knockoffs (Muesliswap is really just Sushiswap in lederhosen).
As Cardano continues to deliver on its development roadmap, we hope to see more developers stepping aboard and creating a more diverse ecosystem of apps to attract users. For now, we'll pass on ADA. |
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| Invest in Cardano? Maybe tomorrow. |
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Bitcoin Market Journal is a daily newsletter that makes you a better crypto investor. It is created by John Hargrave, Nick Marinoff, Steve Walters, Anatol Antonovici, Preetam Kaushik, and Daniel Joel.
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