DeFi Is Losing the Race to Become the Future of Finance
Cardano blockchain activity in the second quarter grew in both value locked and transactional metrics from the first quarter amid technical improvements and a rise in developer interest, a report by analytics firm Messari shows. While decentralized exchange Minswap showed the largest absolute growth, several new decentralized applications, or dapps, also contributed to the increase. The report, which was commissioned by Cardano developer Input Output, compared second-quarter developments against first-quarter figures. It noted that while transaction activity grew, the number of active daily users decreased 4% — the fourth drop in address activity in the past five quarters. 'The ratio of transactions to active addresses has been growing steadily over the past five quarters, suggesting that the average user is more active now than they previously were,' the report said. 'In Q2, the Transaction / Active Address ratio of 1.19 was up 6.1% QoQ and 13.2% YoY.' Blockchain load — a measure of how much data is contained in blocks over a certain period — rose to 50% from under 40% in the previous three months. It peaked at 81% in May. DeFiLlama data shows that $175 million worth of tokens are locked on Cardano as of Monday, the highest level for this year, but still about 50% below a lifetime peak of $340 million hit in May 2022. Such activity comes on the back of key Cardano upgrades since the start of this year. A change to reduce 'epoch' transitions and make the blockchain smoother for network users took effect in June. Epochs refer to the time periods on Cardano, with epoch lasting 432,000 slots and each slot being one second. ADA tokens are staked during these epochs during which new blocks on the Cardano network are produced, potentially increasing demand for the tokens as block rewards become more lucrative, based on activity. In March, a feature on Milkomeda, a network that connects blockchains to the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, began to allow Cardano blockchain users to gain access to EVM smart contracts with any cardano (ADA) wallet, expanding the ecosystem's usefulness. An Ethereum Virtual Machine is where all Ethereum accounts and smart contracts live, serving as a virtual computer used by developers to create dapps. The new feature will allow Ethereum application developers to build on Cardano’s network using Solidity — the computer language used to code Ethereum — without needing to install new toolkits or learn a new computer language. Such applications can then be used solely with Cardano tokens instead of ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum network, increasing the tokens' utility for holders.More than 410,000 eligible airdrop participants did not claim their TIA tokens worth almost $1 million. Celestia, the modular blockchain that claims to scale with more users, has struggled to wrangle much of a market share in its first week, with less than 350,000 transactions registered in the four days following its release. Data from Mintscan shows that current transactions per second (TPS) on Celestia is 0.19. This doesn't necessarily translate to a lack of technical function, but it does mean a lack of activity on the blockchain. UnmuteDegen Chain Racks up Millions in Volumes; Latest in Custodia Bank's Legal Battle Against the Fed. Around 190,000 users claimed Celestia's airdrops on Tuesday despite more than 600,000 being eligible to do so, leaving slightly less than $1 million in unclaimed value. The token currently trades at $2.33 with a market cap of $329 million. Daily trading volume peaked at $475 million on Wednesday. It has since dropped to around $170 million, according to CoinMarketCap. Despite a slow start in terms of activity, Celestia network validators can currently receive around 23.39% APR as a yield for staking the native TIA token, considerably higher than Ethereum's rate of 3.8%. The performance of the TIA token has also been impressive compared to the likes of sui (SUI) and aptos (APT), both of which were airdropped to early adopters over the past year, and both endured bitter downturns after being issued. The stability of TIA can be attributed to a low level of inflation, as early investors and core developers have their token allocation locked up until October 2024.The price of Optimism (OP) tokens has fallen 7% ahead of a planned unlock of over $587 million worth of Ethereum scaling protocol tokens, leading to a significant increase in the circulating supply. The unlock, which is set to take place on Tuesday, will nearly double the current supply of OP tokens, which stands at 335 million. Early investors and contributors hold over 386 million tokens, and the move is expected to lead to significant selling pressure, with immediately available liquidity on OP token pairs across decentralized and centralized exchanges standing at under $10 million. The unlock comes as OP tokens have been on a general downturn since February, sliding from $3 to $1.5 despite gains of at least 50% for bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) in the same period. OP trades at $1.50 as of Tuesday, with a trading volume of $103 million over the past 24 hours. The move is expected to lead to a significant increase in the supply of OP tokens, potentially leading to a decrease in price.