- TON rolled out a new incentives model.
- TON’s recent success saw it flip Cardano in market cap rankings.
- Cardano supporters have expressed disappointment and frustration in the chain’s lack of progress.
The Cardano ecosystem has been busy tackling its roadmap goals, with several new developments nearing completion. These include the Chang hard fork, which will bring on-chain governance, and Ouroboros Leios, which is set to increase throughput and block efficiency.
However, Cardano supporters have grown increasingly frustrated recently as the platform has struggled to keep pace with the broader market uptrend. These frustrations have only mounted as Telegram’s TON flipped ADA to claim the ninth spot in CoinMarketCap’s market cap rankings, leading to a disheartened response from the Cardano community.
Cardano Supporters Reeling
On April 8, TON leapfrogged ADA to claim ninth position by market cap with a valuation of $24 billion, while Cardano slid to tenth position at a valuation of $21.7 billion. This represents a significant drop for Cardano, which was once the third most valuable cryptocurrency in August 2021, boasting a valuation of $91.8 billion at that time.
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The change in fortunes has elicited a barrage of frustrated replies from members of the Cardano community, who question why the project is continuing to lose ground to projects like TON, which has continued to climb in market cap ranking. X influencer King Alex stated that the situation “does not make sense” given that Cardano is home to many top projects such as the Ape Society.
Adding to the dismay, crypto fan cryptosteveo.sol stated that the flipping should come as no surprise when considering Cardano’s lackluster on-chain metrics, such as “wallet activity, transaction numbers, DEX volume, and just about every other metric you can think of.” The disgruntled user predicted that Avalanche could oust Cardano for the tenth spot in the future.
ADAWhale responded to the flipping by attempting to downplay TON’s upswing, arguing that its token distribution is heavily skewed towards whales. The top 100 holders control a whopping 93.2% of the supply, compared to just 21.4% for Cardano, suggesting that TON insiders have an outsized influence on market movements.
In response to the growing frustrations around Cardano’s performance, Input Output CEO Charles Hoskinson recently dismissed talk of the project dying, saying Cardano “holds all the cards” when it comes to critical blockchain technologies such as scalability, governance, and innovation.
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Nonetheless, TON is making massive strides toward mass adoption following the rollout of its proof-of-personhood program.
TON Aims to Onboard 1 Billion Users
TON’s market cap surge is attributed to the rollout of its new “proof-of-personhood” digital ID program. Under this initiative, the TON Foundation has set aside $5 million in TON tokens to incentivize Telegram users to verify their identities using its palm-scanning technology.
This contrasts with competing identity verification projects like Worldcoin, which rely on physically setting up verification stations in various locations to sign up brand-new users.
TON Foundation growth director Ekin Tuna has touted the proof-of-personhood system as a critical step towards enabling mass adoption of the Web3 ecosystem within Telegram, stating that the team aims to onboard 1 billion users to the ID program. With Telegram boasting an impressive 800 million monthly active users, the bold strategy represents a potentially powerful way to onboard a vast user base to the TON ecosystem.
On the Flipside
- Digital IDs have dystopian connotations, especially in conversations around “selling” biometric data.
- Token prices are highly changeable, and market cap rankings do not necessarily indicate developmental progress.
- Cardano staking rewards have fallen from 5%-10% in July 2020 to around 3%.
- Cardano’s lack of impactful marketing is often mentioned as a hindrance to its adoption and mass-market appeal.
Why This Matters
The flipping of Cardano by TON is a significant event that underscores the rapidly changing dynamics within the crypto industry. For Cardano, this development likely raises questions about the project’s long-term competitiveness and ability to maintain relevance in an increasingly crowded market despite its consistent claims of taking a slow, measured approach to do things the “right way.”
Find out more on Charles Hoskinson’s response to mounting Cardano FUD here:
Hoskinson Brushes Off Cardano FUD Attacks with Optimism
Brad Garlinghouse makes bold crypto market cap prediction. Read more here:
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