Cardano (ADA) is a project by Charles Hoskinson that had a lot of promise when it was first introduced as an alternative to Ethereum (ETH). Over the past few years, Charles Hoskinsons initiative skyrocketed in terms of popularity and usage, even reaching the top 3 global cryptocurrencies by market capitalization once upon a time.
However, therein lies the problem, as Cardano has been unable to replicate that kind of success as of late which has since led many to believe that perhaps its best days are truly behind it. As to whether that is indeed the case or not remains to be seen.
Successes
Its not all bad for Cardano though, as the amount of addresses that are holding ADA recently increased to a new all-time high of 4 million back in December. Despite overall activity on Cardanos network being down that month, the number of holders nevertheless increased. Also, Cardano transaction costs, which averaged $0.38 in November, continued to fall to $0.33 in December. Transaction costs on the network averaged $0.69 in September of the previous year.
Whats more is that Cardano transaction traffic even momentarily eclipsed that of the Ethereum blockchain ahead of the debut of SundaeSwap, a much-anticipated decentralized exchange (DEX) on Cardano, earlier this month. Furthermore, its first DeFi programme, MuesliSwap, was released with minimal fanfare but nonetheless saw its total value locked increase dramatically.
Moreover, the average blockchain load recently managed to remain over 90%. This is the very first time the system had ever reached this degree of blockchain load, and its maintenance of the metrics is even more remarkable.
Struggles
Unfortunately, Cardano has also been facing a lot of problems lately despite its recent success. The ongoing drama between SundaeSwap and CardStarter has since left a sour taste in the mouths of the ADA community, to the point where Hoskinson himself had to get involved. To make matters worse, the launch of SundaeSwap was filled with all sorts of technical problems wherein numerous users repeatedly reported failed transactions.
As if that werent bad enough, the overall sentiment regarding Cardano has also slightly worsened as an increasing number of crypto investors and enthusiasts believe that the project is failing to deliver on its various promises.
Still, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel as we draw closer to the Basho stage of Cardano which is based around scaling, interoperability and optimization. Ultimately, time will tell what shall become of the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.