Is Cardano Dead? Will it return to its former glory?

From Cardano’s price dropping by 88% since its all-time high to the overwhelming downtrend from the crypto bearish market and the new competition which could be the ‘Cardano killer’. The question asked is – Is Cardano dead? Can it recover from its current state?

What is Cardano?

Cardano is a blockchain platform built to protect the data of its users, accommodate global systems and be able to support foundational changes. Cardano is open-source and decentralized with a consensus mechanism known as PoS(Proof of Stake).

Cardano helps to easily facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with its cryptocurrency, ADA. Cardano was initially funded through an ICO(Initial Coin Offering) raising a total of approximately $62.24 million of a hard cap with an ICO period of Sept 1, 2015, to January 31st, 2018.

The token, Cardano sale had a four stages funding round, with their sales reaching a staggering 26 billion ADA in the first stage ab 44 billion ADA in the second. The ICO for the token, ADA was organised by its blockchain infrastructure company and creator, IOHK.

Cardano Tokenomics and Funding

Cardano had a pretty simple blueprint with the motive of giving back to its investors.

The token allocation is as follows:

• 57.60% allocated to ICO

• 30.90% allocated to Staking Rewards

• 11.50% allocated to the team

The four funding rounds for Cardano(ADA) are as follows:

• By Nov 2015, the first funding round started with an average price of $0.0024 and $2.66M raised.

• By Apr 2016, the second funding round started with an average price of $0.0025 and $16.49M raised.

• By Sept 2016, the third funding round(Tranche 3 & 3.5) started with average prices of $0.0026 and $0.0027 raising $14.32M and $19.36M (a total of $33.68M)

• From Jan 31st, 2017, the ending funding round started with an average price of $0.0028 and $26.36M raised.

Who founded Cardano?

Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum(ETH) and founder of IOHK(Input Output Hong Kong). IOHK is a research and development company committed to the implementation of peer-to-peer innovations of the blockchain to build accessible financial services worldwide; it was founded in the year 2015 by two founders Jeremy Wood and Charles Hoskinson.

Charles Hoskinson is an American entrepreneur, and co-founder of IOHK Global Inc, and the Cardano blockchain platform. He was also one of the co-founders of Ethereum, developed by Vitalik Buterin and backed by fellow founders Gavin Wood, Anthony Di Iorio and Joseph Lubin. Hoskinson did not pursue VCs(Venture Capital) for Cardano, claiming that it ran counter to the blockchain’s principle. Hoskinson also said that VCs involvement might lead to outside control of the project.

The rise of Cardano

Cardano entered the cryptocurrency market publicly with a market cap of $600 million with an average price of $0.017 as of Oct 1, 2017. By the end of the year 2017, Cardano had increased its market cap to $10 billion and reached a value of $33 billion in early 2018. During 2018 before the general dipping(bearish market) of the crypto market, the Cardano market cap was valued at $10 billion and from 2019 to 2020, it hit its lowest dip since the launch period at an estimated value of $700 million.

Cardano’s market cap soared later on to $77 billion in May of 2021 during the crypto bull run and approximately $95 billion in August of that year

Why did Cardano dip?

Cardano’s (ADA) drop in price is mainly because of the Bitcoin rally against the US dollar and with further actions opposed on Cardano. The FED is another reason why the entire crypto market went bearish; with several interruptions over the past months.

Another condition to critically consider to be a cause of Cardano’s price drop is the growth of competition; the development of new projects offering better returns of investment(ROI) are constantly attracting investors away from the project. Project like Bitgert(BRISE) is one of the new project currently competitive with Cardano; offering lower service charges per transactions($0.000000000001) giving it a zero gas fee and its lower price causing investors and ‘degen’ crypto enthusiasts to purchase it.

TradingView: Cardano/Binance USD(ADA/BUSD)

Is there hope for Cardano?

Yes, there is still hope for Cardano so it is not yet dead. Although from the date Sept 2, 2021 to Oct 25, 2022 there have been a price change of -88%(from $3.1 to $0.4 at the time of documentation) there are still chances of an increase in price, considering that the crypto market is possibly at the bottom of its bear market, and the fact it still standing strong as a part of the top 10 – 100 crypto currencies in term of market cap; having over 3 million wallets and about four times more active users than Ethereum and other altcoins. With the chances of adding more utilities to the project such as NFTs, Cardano may be able to recover or better yet hit an all-time high.