- Cryptocurrency Cardano has lost its crown being the ‘third largest player in market.
- Stablecoin Tether has now taken its place instead.
- The gap between has been fluctuating from as little as $70 million to $3 billion.
Cardano’s ADA token skyrocketed back by 150% in August to become the third largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalisation. But, its triumph seems to have been short-lived.
While the rest of the crypto market struggled to decide its direction, the decentralised blockchain platform was knocked off its perch by Tether, the largest stablecoin in the world, on September 29.
The difference between the two expanded to $3 billion during the night, however, it has shrunk to a mere $1 billion as of 9:00am Indian Standard Time (IST) as Cardano looks to reclaim its throne.
This isn’t even the first disappointment Cardano has had to face his month. ADA’s market capitalisation was bracing to hit $100 billion as recently as September 2, riding on the coat-tails on its Alonzo Hard Fork update. Some were even hoping that it would reach the heights of Ethereum. But, the platform fell short of its triple-digit goal at an all time high of $98.91 billion.
This time around, even the slew of new partnerships announced by the platform barely two days ago, were not enough to shelter Cardano from the pressures of the global crypto market, which has settled into a slump.
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Cardano falls despite unveiling an new stablecoin, partnerships, a new DApp store and more funding
The Cardano Summit, held between September 25 to September 26, included the announcement of the blockchain’s new stablecoin, Djed, in collaboration with fintech company COTI.
“[It is an] autonomous bank that buys and sells stablecoins for a price in a range…”
Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, describes Djed in its whitepaper published in August 2021
The development firm behind Cardano, Input Output, also announced two new partnerships. One is with Oracle protocol Chainlink and another with the US-based satellite TV provider, the DISH network — a Fortune 500 company.
Developers on the Cardano blockchain will also have the opportunity to showcase their decentralised applications (DApps) in a “trusted and democratised environment for developers to publish their DApps without facing censorship,” called the Plutus dAppStore.
Just like Google has the Play Store for Android Apps and Apple has the App Store, the Plutus dApp Store is where users will be able to download applications that are powered by Cardano.
And, if all this wasn’t enough, the commercial and venture capital arm of the cryptocurrency, Emrugo, announced $100 million in fresh funding to further develop the Cardano ecosystem.
Why does market capitalisation matter?
The market capitalisation of a cryptocurrency is one of the primary ways that investors gauge whether or not a coin is safe to buy as compared to its peers — it indicates its growth potential.
The higher the market cap of a particular digital asset, the more dominant it is considered to be in the global market. The more dominant it is, the more likely it is to weather the tides of time in the volatile environment that is cryptocurrencies.
September has been a rollercoaster for all cryptocurrencies, not just Cardano
The crypto market has been fighting against the fear, doubt and uncertainty (FUD) created by China since last week. The country reiterated its anti-crypto stance and has vowed to shut down all crypto-related activity within its borders.
The crypto market initially shrugged off China’s proclamations as just another scare tactic. However, big wig companies did not have the same reaction.
The biggest crypto exchanges in the world, Binance and Huobi, announced they will no longer be accepting new registrations from users based out of China. Sparkpool, the second largest mining pool in the world for Ethereum, will be shutting down operations in less than 24 hours. And, Alibaba — China’s e-commerce giant — announced it will no longer be selling mining equipment.
The crypto market seems to be finding its sea legs as it returns into the green on September 30. Cardano is up by 1.95% with a price of $2.11 but has been unable to come back up to third rank so far.
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