Cardano Falls Behind the Base Network: Is Interest Decreasing for Cardano (ADA)?

• Cardano, the Second Layer (L2) scaling solution created by Coinbase, has significantly fallen below Base’s Total Locked Value (TVL).
• According to Evan Van Ness, a member of ConsenSys and an Ethereum advocate, Cardano has become a “zombie chain” because it is currently below Base’s TVL.
• Cardano may have disappointed in terms of TVL, but development activity has gained momentum. According to Santiment, ADA had a high development activity level of 91.9.

Developments on the Cardano network continue, but the decrease in TVL raises insecurity in the network, drawing attention to the advancement of the Base network.

Base Surpasses Cardano Network in Terms of TVL

Cardano, often praised for its approach to smart contracts, recently faced criticism after significantly falling below Base’s Total Locked Value (TVL), which is a Second Layer (L2) scaling solution created by Coinbase.

One of the individuals heavily criticizing Cardano is Evan Van Ness, a member of ConsenSys and an Ethereum advocate. According to Van Ness, Cardano has become a “zombie chain” because it is currently below Base’s TVL.

Interestingly, Van Ness is not criticizing Cardano for the first time. 11 months ago, Ness highlighted the lack of transactions in Cardano. At that time, Van Ness believed that the project led by Charles Hoskinson might not be able to compete with other projects in the DeFi space, especially those with a market value as high as Uniswap.

Back then, Van Ness reiterated that Cardano would not have an impressive number of transactions and said:

“Yesterday, there were barely more than 0.5 transactions per second.”

Currently, Cardano’s TVL is $159.33 million, experiencing a 12.21% decrease in the last 30 days. On the other hand, Base’s TVL recorded $185.81 million with an 11.02% gain in the last seven days.

TVL measures the unique deposit transactions entering the protocol. When this metric increases, it indicates an increase in trust. However, when TVL decreases, it means that the project is not at the highest level of health, so market participants refrain from depositing funds into the protocol.

Therefore, the difference between TVLs shows that Base has won the hearts of market participants, while ADA is not as attractive to investors.

Development Increases, Activity Decreases

Cardano may have disappointed in terms of TVL, but development activity has gained momentum. According to Santiment, ADA had a high development activity level of 91.9. The increase in development activity indicates that many commitments and code commitments have been made for a secure upgrade of the Cardano blockchain.

Meanwhile, the development activity regarding active addresses in Cardano did not show the same progress. At the time of writing, the number of active addresses in the last 30 days decreased from over one million in mid-June to 639,000.

The decrease in active addresses is consistent with Van Ness’s view that Cardano lacks attractiveness. However, this does not confirm whether unique addresses will continue to consider the ecosystem.