How Cardano’s Slow Progress Created Competitors

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Cardano was a child of creative differences.

The blockchain, created by Charles Hosikson because of differences between him and Vitalik Buterin, should have ruled the world by now. Hoskinson believed Ethereum should have a for-profit drive, while Buterin preferred the non-profit approach. 

So Hoskinson created what he would term an “Ethereum Killer”. The only problem is Cardano just became Smart Contract capable this year, while Ethereum has been that way since its launch in 2015. 

So much so that the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has become a standard of itself. The EVM is now the standard for Smart-Contract capable blockchains. 

Cardano has many process issues. It is clear from the lack of development and slow progress that has kept the blockchain mired in its snail-paced growth. That wasn’t the case, though, during crypto summer in 2017 at its launch. Had the founder fulfilled promises made in 2017, things would be different. 

Blockchains like Avalanche have taken off in far less time and are looking like they could give the house to Vitalik Buterin because of the discord in the Ethereum community. Cardano keeps looking like a nerd’s science project day in and out. The concepts espoused have potentially powerful applications that could change the cryptocurrency space forever. 

Why Avalanche Would Give Ethereum a Run For Vitalik Buterin’s Money

First introduced to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) on 16th May 2018 and, with a final gamma mainnet launch on 21st September 2020, Avalanche has created a new paradigm within the blockchain space. 

The first thing that makes Avalanche unique is how its quorum properties can work on both Linear blockchains and directed acyclic graphs (DAG) ledgers. This dual-purpose ability allows for a broader codebase and fewer errors for consensus.

Besides this, the final mainnet launch came with smart-contract capabilities that have enabled the shift of projects from Ethereum to Avalanche. 

So much so that decentralized exchanges (dexes) have a home on Avalanche, while only one Dex (SundaeSwap) has launched on Cardano. 

One of those dexes who launched in Avalanche is Pangolin. The project is a cross-chain decentralized exchange that allows for asset exchange between Ethereum and Avalanche. That way, projects can have their tokens on both blockchains without porting from one ledger to the next. 

It also solves the problems of cross-chain capabilities. Something that developers build Parachains on Polkadot, for instance. A comparison of the projects available on Avalanche provides proof that Avalanche is moving toward eventually displacing Ethereum. 

Within the Avalanche ecosystem, public blockchains exist there because of projects like the Pangolin dex. Many DeFi projects have called Avalanche home. On Cardano, outside the ADA token, only the Chainlink (LINK) and SundaeSwap tokens have any mainstream attraction to everyone. LINK is popular because of data oracles within the Chainlink ecosystem.

Data oracles help cryptocurrency projects and D’Apps to integrate dynamic data sources into their applications. The problem here has more to do with the immutability of blockchains and ledgers. SundaeSwap is of interest because it is the first dex on the Cardano network. Nothing more. 

Cardano’s Future Remains in Doubt 

With the slow pace of progress and the existence of peer-review mechanisms that slow the pace of development on the Cardano ecosystem, we may see a further relegation of Cardano into the background. 

We shall also see the emergence of other blockchain oracles that will perform faster and better than the Chainlink ecosystem. Innovation is inevitable. 

Third-generation or fourth-generation blockchains could have mutable blockchain subnet and some governance processes to oversee the blockchains themselves.

The point is, Cardano’s advantages get eroded by the day. Given its history and its founder, we may not see another development from the team until, say, five years. By then, even ETH 2.0 would have launched and gained steam!

So, we may not see the glorious future Hoskinson told us about in 2017. 

Avalanche Could Beat ETH 2.0

Even with the most recent ETH  Arrow Glacier upgrade, Avalanche has everything it takes to beat ETH 2.0 at its game. One is the foundation of the Avalanche subnet that allows for over one form of Proof-of-Stake consensus. This snow family of quorum-based voting allows for implementing different innovations at the subnet level. 

How Does Avalanche Compare to Other Blockchains?

In answer to the Avalanche’s performance, Ken Burbary, CMO, Pangolin said. 

“Avalanche is blazingly fast compared to other L1 blockchains and transactions are quite inexpensive, making it user-friendly to the widest crypto audience. Lastly, Avalanche is the most secure and decentralized L1, containing thousands of validator nodes, making it safe for builders and users alike.”

It makes the blockchain to become the top contender for the New Kid on the Block. 

Upgrades to Avalanche could include many mechanisms that allow for sharding of the mainnet should scaling ever be an issue. While that’s unlikely, we shall see another level of growth because of the three chains running under the Avalanche hood. With C-Chain, X-Chain, and P-Chain functionality, Avalanche will come into its own soon without the headaches that Ethereum and Cardano have had to go through. 

Cardanos’ Problem is Mostly Human

It’s clear from the get-go that the fundamental problem preventing Cardano’s emergence as a powerhouse has more to do with its human processes than with the blockchain itself. 

As long as red tape exists for project deployment, not much will occur within and around the ecosystem. No matter how much goodwill exists within the cryptocurrency and blockchain space for Hoskinson and his team, there will still be difficulties unless everyone puts aside whatever issues they may have in-house. 

There are differences, no doubt. The issue is getting the Cardano team to admit this and put themselves back in work mode. There is no way that development would have been this slow. It simply doesn’t happen in the blockchain space unless there are interpersonal conflicts nobody will resolve. 

As other teams develop their blockchains and the corresponding ecosystems, we may see everyone drift apart from the Cardano blockchain.

It will be a pity because the cryptocurrency space would have lost what could have become one of the fastest and most dynamic blockchain systems known to humankind. And that is the travesty behind the slow growth rate of Cardano and its team. Something concerns all members of the cryptocurrency and blockchain spaces, regardless of affiliation.