The crypto bear market has been brutal, but it has by no means stopped the development of the Cardano ecosystem. The network recently celebrated the completion of its Vasil hard fork, and while the price of its native token ADA has failed to move in tandem with the development, Cardano developer Emurgo is undeterred as it reveals a massive fund for network developments.
$200 million in Cardano projects
CoinDesk caught up with Ken Kodama, founder of Emurgo, at the Token 2049 conference, where it was announced that the Cardano developer would delve deeper into ecosystem funding. It was revealed that Emurgo planned to inject $200 million into the ecosystem for projects built on the network.
The fund is specifically aimed at projects that are currently being developed on the Cardano network, as well as projects that exist on other networks but plan to integrate blockchain support over time. It has also earmarked $100 million of this fund to go towards investments in Africa, a region where Cardano development has increased in recent months.
ADA price trending at $0.43 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com
The founder explained that the fund actually came out of Emurgo’s capital and was meant for the network’s expansion over the next few years. It’s especially important now that the update is complete and developers can build on the network now.
Emurgo’s investment in the ecosystem will no doubt help its DeFi growth, which has been struggling during the bear run. With this funding, it will be easier to bring more builders into the network by providing solid financial support.
Standing against the competitors
Cardano has often received harsh criticism in the space, as many investors believe the network is not growing fast enough. The most recent of these comes from Ethereum maxi Evan Van Ness, who referred to the blockchain as a “zombie chain.”
In his post, Van Ness noted that Cardano saw fewer transactions compared to Uniswap, even though the latter has a much lower market cap. However, these are two projects that differ greatly in their mode of operation and revenue generation, so this is not the best example for it.
However, Cardano remains ahead of other networks in terms of decentralized financial activity. But it’s worth noting that the network received smart contract capability much later than its competitors, and investments in the space have demonstrated a commitment to developing its DeFi domain.
Cardano’s total DeFi TVL currently stands at $76.79M, which is 0.14% of the total DeFi TVL of $54.74M. The price of the digital asset is $0.43 with a total market capitalization of $15 billion.
Featured image from The Cryptonomist, chart from TradingView.com
keep going Best Owie on Twitter for market insights, updates and the occasional funny tweet…
