Top projects building on Cardano in 2022

summary: Cardano is one of the leading Layer 1 blockchains, launched in 2017 as a more efficient, scalable, and sustainable alternative to proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin. To find out if Cardano – along with its companion token ADA – is a good long-term investment, we researched the top projects building on it.

At Bitcoin Market Journal, we believe that the best L1 blockchains will be among the best long-term crypto investments: think of them as the “operating systems” or “base layer” of crypto. We also believe that L1 leadership can be measured by the quality and quantity of the projects that build on those chains.

Today Cardano is one of the biggest L1s, behind Bitcoin, Ethereum and BNB. As of this writing, the platform’s native token, ADA, has a market cap of around $15 billion, making it one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies.

However, Cardano takes a slow and careful approach to development, ensuring that every update is extensively tested and peer-reviewed. While this means that Cardano is slower to enter the market, it also has time to examine the weaknesses of other blockchains and fix these problems.

While Cardano has been slow to add smart contract capabilities – it was only implemented in September 2021 – it has a head start on other L1s in terms of scalability and security, which is why many projects choose to use Cardano over Ethereum for their smart contracts to use.

Here are some of the leading smart contract projects on Cardano.

WingRiders (WRT)

WingRiders is a decentralized exchange (DEX) for automated market makers (AMM) powered by VacuumLabs, a highly respected developer in the Cardano space.

It is now the leading DeFi protocol on the Cardano blockchain in terms of total value locked, holding 42.53% of the chain’s dominance with $134.3 million locked. With WingRiders, investors can use swaps, stakes, liquidity pools and deposit funds into yield farms.

The decentralized exchange has already brought many firsts to the Cardano ecosystem. It was the first to:

• Bring Ethereum and Bitcoin to the blockchain.
• Bring stablecoins to Cardano.
• Offer equity pool voting where liquidity providers can vote on which of their pools will deploy ADA.
• Offer direct hardware wallet integrations.
• Integration with 3rd party dapps.

WingRider’s Governance Token (WRT) allows token holders to vote on key decisions regarding the development of the project.

Min swap (MIN)

Minswap is a multi-pool DEX built on top of Cardano. It was the first multi-pool DEX on the blockchain and announced its debut on the Cardano mainnet in March 2022.

Minswap’s multi-pool allows users to deposit liquidity for rewards in multiple crypto assets. Minswap offers various liquidity pools to allow users to route their trades through the most efficient pools. Later, this multi-pool trading feature is set to be transformed into a DEX aggregator.

There are also plans to develop features that will help the Cardano ecosystem as a whole, such as: B. An IFO (Initial Farm Offering) launchpad that allows other projects to safely launch tokens without worrying about automated bots scavenging tokens instead of real users.

Sundae Exchange (SUNDAE)

SundaeSwap is an automated liquidity provisioning protocol and decentralized exchange on Cardano that enables native token (SUNDAE) and ADA exchanges. SundaeSwap allows users to stake, swap, lend and borrow in a decentralized manner.

SundaeSwap uses AMMs that form a liquidity pool composed of two assets. Users help create these pools by providing an even amount of two assets into the pool from which an investor can submit a trade on either of the two assets in the pool. In turn, the price of both assets will go up or down and a new market rate will be calculated for both assets. So instead of executing a buy or sell order for another trader, the trader buys or sells directly within the pool.

SundaeSwap also operates on a permissionless, decentralized system, meaning the protocol is available for open use and there are no restrictions on who can use the protocol. With internet access and a Cardano wallet, anyone can add or remove liquidity from a pool and trade crypto.

MuesliSwap (MILK)

MuesliSwap was the first native, scalable DEX on Cardano, launched on mainnet in November 2021.

MuesliSwap differs from other trading approaches by using Cardano’s transaction model. This extended UTXO model allows projects to use the order book model as a decentralized exchange. This means that MuesliSwap supports order limits, giving you complete control over your investments.

MuesliSwap also offers low fees, fast transaction processing, and front-running protection.

rental pond

Lending Pond allows users to take out ADA loans by posting an NFT as collateral. The posted NFT must be worth a certain percentage more than the requested ADA in order for the loan to be overcollateralized.

Borrowers can set their interest rates and levels of over-collateralization, and lenders can review offers and decide on financing deals they deem acceptable. The NFTs are returned to the borrower once the loan is repaid on time.

This allows borrowers a unique opportunity to leverage liquidity without the use of credit checks or KYC.

How many projects build on Cardano?

Over 1,000 projects are currently being built on the Cardano blockchain. The Cardano blockchain surpasses its competitors like Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche in the number of Github commits per month. Github is a metric used to measure the development activity of a blockchain network.

Around 40% of the projects being built on Cardano are NFT projects, followed by social and community projects as well as metaverse and gaming protocols.

Can Cardano catch Ethereum?

Cardano has positioned itself as a promising alternative to Ethereum, but Ethereum continues to widen its competitive moat, especially since its move to Proof of Stake.

Progress on Cardano, while slow, has been steady. The successful “Alonzo” upgrade in 2021 gave Cardano smart contract functionality. Next up will be the highly anticipated “Vasil” upgrade, which will increase the performance and scalability of the network. Vasil’s testnet rollout was a success and is scheduled to go live on mainnet this week.

Investor Takeaway

Many exciting projects are being built on Cardano, but the most successful apps today are related to buying and selling tokens. Disappointingly, many look like Ethereum knockoffs (Müsliswap is really just sushiswap in lederhosen).

As Cardano continues to execute on its development roadmap, we hope more developers will come on board and build a more diverse ecosystem of apps to attract more users. For the time being we are doing without ADA.

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