- Cardano made just $238k in fees in the first quarter of this year.
- The total value locked (TVL) in the network has plunged in the past few weeks.
- Cardano has been slower in rolling out upgrades than other networks like Solana and Ethereum.
Cardano, a top player in the crypto industry that went viral in 2021 as an alternative to Ethereum, has largely become a ghost chain despite its $9 billion valuation.
Cardano Made Just $238k in Fees in Q1
Data compiled by DeFi Llama shows that Cardano is no longer making money as developers remain on the sidelines and as users avoid dApps on its network.
The data reveals that Charles Hoskinson’s project generated just $238,588 in the first quarter of this year, its worst performance since 2020. At its peak, the network made $4.25 million in the first quarter of 2021. Cardano has raised just $48k so far this quarter.
In contrast, other top layer-1 chains are making millions of dollars a quarter. Ethereum made nearly $40 million, while Solana generated $70 million in the same period.
Cardano, which Charles Hoskinson, an Ethereum co-founder, started, has largely become a ghost chain, with little activity going on in the network. A good example of this is in the booming real-world asset (RWA) industry, which has accumulated $30.9 billion in assets. According to RWA, no asset has been tokenized on the network.
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Similarly, Cardano has a tiny market share in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, with just $130 million in assets, compared to Ethereum’s $45 billion and Solana’s $5.4 billion.
The same is happening in other industries, including the stablecoin and gaming, where its market share has shrunk over the past few months.
Why Cardano Has Failed to Gain Traction
There are several reasons Cardano has struggled to gain traction despite its popularity and status as one of the most decentralized players in the crypto industry.
One reason is that for a long time, Cardano has had no major oracle network, a crucial part of the crypto industry. Oracles are tools that connect off-chain data to the on-chain, with Chainlink being the most important.
Cardano made some progress last year by integrating the Pyth Network, a top project in the oracle industry. Still, despite this, the network has had no traction among developers.
Additionally, Cardano has been slower than other networks to roll out major upgrades. Ethereum made some major upgrades last year, including the Pectra and Fusaka. BSC Chain launched the Pascal, Lorentz, and Fermi chains.
In contrast, Cardano has had no major upgrades in years, with its transaction-per-second rate below 15. Even the upcoming Leios upgrade has been in development for years. While this upgrade will boost its speeds, it is unclear whether it will lead to demand among developers.
Cardano recently launched Midnight, its most ambitious project ever. Midnight is a sidechain with faster speeds and advanced privacy features using the zero-knowledge (zk) technology. Still, months after the hyped mainnet launch, Midnight has no public dApps. Its NIGHT token has also crashed, with its market capitalization falling from $1.5 billion to $550 million.
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