Why Cardano (ADA) is the most Over valued Smart Contract platform

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 Why Cardano (ADA) is the most Overvalued Smart Contract platform





        I was on twitter earlier responding to a twitter post from the Gemini exchange twitter post, "What is your favorite crypto on our exchange?". I think Gemini is a fantastic exchange, albeit most of their offerings are far more curated to the tastes of the Winklevoss twins. For a long time, most of their smart contract platforms centered around Ethereum and other EVM platforms or tokens that can be bridged from Ethereum. Only recently did Gemini decide to add Solana (SOL) to their platform, which marks Solana as a potential blue chip cryptocurrency. So it wouldn't be unusual that a lot of smart contract platforms are not available on Gemini.

        In crypto, there are people known as "maximalists" who bet the entire horse on a single cryptocurrency. It shouldn't surprise anyone when someone on twitter says "The only good exchanges around have Cardano, those that don’t aren’t worth my time.". I had two responses on twitter:



        I am not a coin maximalist by any stretch of the imagination. At times, I think my portfolio is too diversified. The hardest decision sometimes is figuring what positions I should axe and where I should consolidate my portfolio. Sometimes you need to reconsider old views. However, Maximalist are either straight up idiots or mad geniuses. For this reason, I decided to take a look under the hood of a bunch of smart contract platforms; Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Terra, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Matic. The reason for this selection; they are all large market capitalized coins and they are all smart contract platforms.


The Blockchain Overview

        People can have 1 million opinions but facts don't care about your feelings, opinions or your religion.  This is part of my goal as someone who wants to help the public create informed opinions.  Given the amount of cult-like followings and scams that are in crypto, I felt the need to follow in the footsteps of my mentors, Cultivate Crypto and DollarCostCrypto.  So let's break down the numbers.  I will be using Defi llama as my primary source.

Total Number of Protocols
  1. Ethereum-582 (Defi Llama:#1)
  2. Polygon-218 (Defi Llama:#2)
  3. Avalanche-189 (Defi Llama:#5)
  4. Solana-63 (Defi Llama: #6)
  5. Polkadot-30 (Defi Llama: #12)
  6. Terra-26 (Defi Llama: #14)
  7. Cardano-7 (Defi Llama: #25)
Total Value Locked up
  1. Ethereum ~$127.14 Billion (Defi Llama: #1)
  2. Terra ~$29.21 Billion (Defi Llama: #2)
  3. Avalanche ~$10.81 Billion (Defi Llama: #4)
  4. Solana ~$8.07 Billion (Defi Llama: #5)
  5. Polygon ~$4.18 Billion (Defi Llama: #9)
  6. Polkadot ~$1.97 Billion (Defi Llama: #11)
  7. Cardano ~$242 Million (Defi Llama: #28)
Market Capitalization to Total Value Locked up Ratio 
  1.  Cardano ~153.7 (Defi Llama: #12)
  2.  Polkadot ~12.9 (Defi Llama: #30)
  3.  Solana ~5.4 (Defi Llama: #54)
  4. Ethereum ~3.2 (Defi Llama: #58) 
  5. Polygon ~2.7 (Defi Llama: 63)
  6. Avalanche ~2.5 (Defi Llama: 65)
  7. Terra ~1.3 (Defi Llama: 72)

        A Cardano Maximalist may look at that last list and say "LOOK AT THAT!  WE ARE BEATING ALL THESE OTHER CHAINS!  HAHA, THIS ARTICLE JUST PROVES HOW GREAT CARDANO IS!"  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It just proves how little the Cardano community cares about their blockchain.  They are simply investing in the ADA coin, and nothing into the protocols.  Keep in mind, the Cardano blockchain only has 7 protocols to choose from.  It shouldn't be too hard to siphon a larger portion of that wealth.  Let's take a look at the Total Value Locked up in the Cardano Protocols:

  1. Minswap ~$150 Million
  2. Sundae Swap ~$88 Million
  3. Musliswap ~$2.01 Million
  4. Meowfiswap ~$1.53 Million
  5. Adax Pro ~$10 Million
  6. VyFinance ~0
  7. Meld ~0
    Let us compare that to the top three ethereum protocols with the fourth one being the market capitalization equal to minswap.  The following protocols are only available on Ethereum:
  1. MakerDao~$15.8 Billion
  2. Convex~ $12.87 Billion
  3. Compound~$6.85 Billion
  4. Angle~$155 Million (Defi Llama: #56)
    In other words, you need to go far down the list for ethereum.  The reality is Cardano isn't the Ethereum Killer it was made out to be.  How does Cardano stack up against Solana, the buggy chain that has been struggling to perform correctly.

  1. Marinade Finance~$962 Million
  2. Serum ~$874 Million
  3. Solend~$849 Million
  4. Larix~$171 Million (Defi Llama: #15)
    How about Terra?
  1. Anchor~$15.21 Billion
  2. Spectrum~$175 Million (Defi Llama: #10)
    I could go down the list with the rest of these ecosystems.  The truth is it simply cannot hold up a candle to the rest of the ecosystems.  Let us also compare the amount of time that each blockchain had to develop their ecosystems:

  • Ethereum- Genesis Date: August 2015, 7 years
  • Cardano- Genesis Date:   October 2017, 5 years
  • Polygon- Genesis Date: April 2019, 3 years
  • Terra-Genesis Date: May 2019, 3 years
  • Solana- Genesis Date: April 2020, 2 years
  • Polkadot: Genesis Date: August 2020, 2 years
  • Avalanche: Genesis Date: September 2020, 2 years
        The sad reality is Cardano is lagging behind every project despite the amount of time it has had to develop its entire ecosystem.  It should be light years ahead of every other blockchain out there.  With all the available data available, what defense could a Cardano maximalist possibly have?


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