Cardano’s First Steps to the DeFi Market

Currently, Cardano is one of the largest projects in the crypto market with the fourth largest market capitalization, reaching 45 billion USD. Why Cardano has grown so strongly from the beginning of 2021 to now. Does this make Cardano still standing since 2017?

We invite you to review the most prominent events about the Cardano ecosystem through the Cardano report in the first half of 2021 below.

The infographics and information in the article are referenced from the source Cardians.

Overview of the Cardano ecosystem

Cardano’s Roadmap

Before going into the details of Cardano Ecosystem, I want to mention the original Roadmap that Cardano planned. Cardano’s Roadmap consists of 5 stages:

• Stage 1 (Bryon): Platform development phase (Foundation Era) started from September 2017.
• Phase 2 (Shelley): Decentralized Era (Decentralized Era) starts from 7/2020.
• Stage 3 (Goguen): The smart contract phase (Smart Contract) starts from 3/2021.
• Stage 4 (Basho): Scaling Era is coming.
• Stage 5 (Voltaire): The Governance Era is about to take place.

So we are in phase 3, the Smart Contract development phase that allows developers to develop projects on the Cardano blockchain. Please follow along below to see what progress Cardano has made in phase 3.

Important updates

Grayscale – The world’s largest Bitcoin holder and $40B fund manager has enabled investment funds to easily access ADA investments. Despite just being supported, Cardano is already in the top 3 most held assets (4.29 percent) after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Project Catalyst Fund 4 – Similar to the Build Reward Program of the BSC ecosystem. Project Catalyst is a program that encourages developers to contribute ideas and develop projects on the Cardano ecosystem. Now they have gone to step 4, there will be Fund 5 and Fund 6 coming up (details below).

Nervos Network – Cardano has gradually built a bridge to attract users and increase interaction from other blockchains. The beginning is Nervos Network, this is a blockchain that allows users to build dApps similar to Ethereum. What if Cardano successfully built a bridge from Ethereum?

Alonzo Testnet – Before launching Mainnet for Smart Contract, Cardano launched Alonzo Testnet for internal Cardano team to test before releasing to the community. This is probably one of the most anticipated news from Cardano because most of the projects on Cardano are waiting for the Mainnet to be able to deploy projects on Smart Contract.

Cardano is listed on exchanges – Since the beginning of this year, Cardano has been supported by four additional platforms, including Bitmart, Swipe, Bybit, and Coinbase.

• Events are Coinbase Support was one of the biggest news of the year for Cardano, after Coinbase listing and the wave of the market, Cardano made a new high at $2.1.
• Bybit As a leveraged, derivatives exchange, this does not help Cardano gain more holdings. However, Bybit is one of the major derivatives exchanges, which helps increase Cardano’s presence in the community.
• Swipe is a Payment platform that helps users pay for products in real life. Swipe to add Cardano support will help users who have not yet entered the crypto market to still be able to buy ADA easily.

Impressive numbers in the ABC system

• 70%+ of ADA’s circulating supply has been staked in the Validator: Cardano is a crypto project with a very large number of followers. This is shown by the amount of ADA staked in the Validator. With a market capitalization of $45 billion, over $30 billion has been staked, representing over 70% of all ADA out-market. In addition, Cardano also has the top 1 number of Validators, reaching 2735 Validators.
• Over 1,000,000 active wallets has been recorded on the Cardano blockchain.
• Project Catalyst attracted more than 250,000 attendees and registered over 280 projects. If done well, projects can split prizes up to 1 million dollars.
• ADA increased from $0.18 to $1.4 (700% increase) since the beginning of 2021. Compared to the peak price on May 16, 2021 on May 16, 2021, ADA has grown by 1,270%.

Analyze each piece

This is the most overview picture of the Cardano ecosystem. If Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain focus on DeFi projects, Cardano is more focused on social activities, so DeFi projects are not diversified.

Out of a total of 280 projects participating in Project Catalyst, there are many new projects that only have ideas but have not yet implemented specific activities (create websites, create Twitter pages to launch the community), that’s why I only focus on the most potential projects in the section below.

However, Cardano has not officially launched the Mainnet, so Cardano projects cannot yet be deployed on the Cardano blockchain. Some projects are choosing to deploy on Ethereum first, then expand to Cardano when the Mainnet is completed.

Bridge

In addition to the bridge from Nervos Blockchain to the Cardano blockchain I mentioned above, a few projects in the ecosystem have taken steps to develop. Tool Bridge from Ethereum to Cardano, typically the OccamFi project (main product is Launchpad).

If this is successfully implemented, it will be a huge step forward as Ethereum DeFi inflows are worth up to $50 billion, the second potential ecosystem is Binance Smart Chain with DeFi TVL reaching $25 billion .

Oracle

In order for the DeFi domains to work smoothly, Oracle is an indispensable area to help provide data from the real world for DeFi projects. If Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain use ChainLink and Band Protocol, Cardano mainly uses ERGO and WolframAlpha – these are two Oracle projects developed by the IOHK team – the organization that develops Cardano.

In addition, the Cardano field also welcomes new members Charlie3, this is a decentralized Oracle project that has just been launched on Cardstarter. However, Cardano once mentioned using only “homemade” projects like ERGO. Will Charli3 have the potential to support DeFi projects on Cardano in the future?

AMM & Orderbook DEX

AMM Liquidity is one of the most important areas to measure the DeFi scale of an ecosystem. Currently, there are no real projects because Cardano has not launched the Mainnet, but I still list some potential projects below according to the level of published information:

• There is a clear product development team: Cardswap (Cardstarter’s DEX), Ray Exchange (Ray Wallet).
• Launched web, tokenomics or whitepaper: Matrixswap, SundaeSwap, YaySwap, DeFIRE, Vy Finance, MinSwap,…
• Have an idea that hasn’t been implemented yet: Pharotech, Daemon Exchange, PolySwap,…

Launchpad

Launchpad is one of the most important areas to help attract cash flow if it is successfully deployed when the market is in an exciting “season”. Launchpad is the most active field of Cardano system and currently has 3 projects:

• Cardstarter: Launched 5 projects including Charli3, DeFinity, Alpha Impact, GeroWallet and SoMee. Coming soon Matrixswap, Ridotto,… This is also the team that will soon launch AMM on the Cardano ecosystem with the Cardswap project.
• OccamFi: Just launched 2 projects, OccamFi and DeFIRE. They are also the bridge developer from Ethereum I mentioned above. This is a very smart step as a pioneer in the development of Bridge, helping to increase the recognition of projects open for sale on OccamFi.
• Ventup: Ventup is a project with a similar operating model Knife Maker, they not only act as Launchpad but also provide development project support services. However, Ventup has just stopped creating ideas and has not yet launched any specific project launch activities.

NFT

Similar to projects in the AMM Liquidity segment, most projects in the NFT field in Cardano is still in the development plan and has not really made outstanding strides in the ecosystem. Some typical projects: ADAZOO, NIFTY, Playermint,…

Projections & Investment Opportunities

Cardano Ecosystem Perspective

Personally, Cardano has clear plans for future expansion. Cardano has launched the Alonzo Testnet for testing before launching the Mainnet for deployable projects on the Cardano blockchain.

However, in the DeFi space alone, Cardano has a relatively slow development process compared to the competition. This makes it impossible for Cardano to keep up with the waves of the market while new competitors Binance Smart Chain, Fantom, Avalanche move very quickly, as evidenced by the liquidity in that ecosystem.

Project Catalyst is Cardano’s primary incubator during the launch of new projects. However, over the past 1 month, only 56 projects have been funded, in those projects, only about 20 projects are active in the field of crypto. This is a huge disadvantage that prevents Cardano from reaching its ecosystem expansion in the DeFi space.

The key of Cardano still lies in Smart Contract, currently there are many projects with a vision to develop on Cardano blockchain but they do not have Devnet or Testnet to be able to build products. Hopefully Cardano will soon have a solution so that projects can maintain development momentum at Cardano.

Invest in ADA tokens

In terms of safety, the ADA token has a high level of security due to its large community, which is reflected in the amount of ADA staked in Validators accounting for 71% of ADA’s circulating supply. Therefore, even though ADA does not have many specific applications or activities in the crypto market, they are still at the top of the market in terms of capitalization.

However, in terms of growth, the ADA token will not be my preferred choice because since the beginning of 2021, the ADA token has had a very strong growth in the uptrend of the market. More specifically, Cardano has grown by 700%. Compared to the traditional investment market, this is a huge profit and can be considered a profit-taking point for many investors.

Cardano’s current capitalization is $45 billion at $1.4/ADA. If you expect a x2 growth from the current price to $2.8/ADA, Cardano’s capitalization has to reach $90 billion, surpassing the $60 billion USDT capitalization, which is really unlikely.

Therefore, considering the two possibilities of price increase and decrease at the moment, I am still more inclined to the case that Cardano needs a correction or accumulation before further growth. Even if it can grow, Cardano’s growth room is close to reaching the threshold.

Cardano and ADA tokens will probably still have more potential and value in the future, however, you need to follow Cardano’s performance in the market in the future, so that we can price and set the period. hope for Cardano.

Learn more about Cardano’s highlights as well as tokenomics and ADA Token’s potential right now. here!

summary

I will summarize the main ideas of the article through the outline below:

• Despite the decline from the peak, Cardano still has very impressive growth since the beginning of 2021.
• The community places a great deal of faith in Cardano as 70% of the ADA in circulation has been staked with a capitalization of over $30 billion.
• Cardano has been backed by the Grayscale fund – the world’s largest crypto investment fund managing up to $40 billion in assets.
• Cardano has launched the Alonzo Testnet and plans to launch the Mainnet in Q3/2021.
• DeFi projects on Cardano are facing the biggest obstacle in Smart Contract, they are in need of a “foundation” to be able to build a product.

Above is the Cardano Report with all the most prominent information of the Cardano ecosystem since the beginning of 2021. If you are a Cardano fan, do not forget to follow the projects under construction at Project Catalyst. CHK team will update you as soon as possible when there is the latest information from Cardano.