Rays Of Light During A Dark Time

Knowledge Base

Rays Of Light During A Dark Time

With the crypto markets reeling from multiple negative upheavals and bad news coming in from seemingly every possible angle, I wanted to go against the tide of dark influences and put a different perspective out there for everyone in our Cafe family.

   With the crypto markets reeling from multiple negative upheavals and bad news coming in from seemingly every possible angle, I wanted to go against the tide of dark influences and put a different perspective out there for everyone in our Cafe family.  I know it isn't easy to be optimistic in view of the deluge of bad news we are being hammered with, but it might be useful to keep some of these following facts in mind. 

   To start with I am offering a glimpse into the infamous "dotcom Bubble" which blew up after the famous bull market run of the late '90s.  This tech driven bull market saw the Nasdaq rise from 1000 to 5000 in only 5 years. The bubble was enabled by cheap easy capital access and thoughtless investor overconfidence paired with baseless rampant speculation. The Federal Reserve Board chairman at that time, Alan Greenspan, cautioned against the "irrational exhuberence" that had gripped the equities markets.  His admonitions were scoffed at. Venture capitalists jumped in to invest in companies, any companies, with a “.com” after its name. Standard due diligence was thrown out of the window. Stock prices were overinflated being based on non-existent profits and earnings that might not be realized for years, assuming the businesses survived... and many of them did not. 

   Anyone of almost any age who knew how to build websites became sought after experts, naming their price, and almost no price was too high. Companies launched IPOs without any real business plan in place or finished products to display.  Stock prices doubled and tripled or quadrupled within days of their IPO going up on the big board, it was a heady and dangerous environment.  The whole thing blew up in 2000, and then between 2001 and 2002 the Nasdaq lost about 80%, and many of the hot new companies ceased to exist. VC companies went bust, the hopes and life savings of untold numbers of retail investors were crushed, and anyone who had borrowed money or bought on margin got wiped out.  Sound familiar? But after the dust had finally settled, the Internet itself remained firmly in place and the survivors, Amazon for example, and their descendants, now rule the world. So the Internet survived and expanded exponentially to become part of every aspect of modern life.  And we all know that without the Internet there would be no blockchain or cryptocurrencies or NFTs or metaverse... 

   It is essential to see that even though the speculative dotcom bubble burst, it was the unprecedented adoption rate of the internet that truly mattered.  The key word here is "adoption".  It is an established fact that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have an adoption rate that exceeds that of the Internet.  The adoption and proliferation of cryptocurrencies, the launching of new blockchain projects, Defi projects, NFT projects, metaverse projects, and other applications of blockchain technology are outpacing the rate of growth and acceptance that the Internet experienced. This adoption rate is Metcalf's Law in action.  Bitcoin was created only 13 years ago, and the entire crypto space has developed since then.  It is clear that given the recent unraveling of the crypto markets and a sequence of brutal disasters: the Terra Luna stablecoin collapse, the Fed rate hike, and the insolvency crises of Celsius and 3 Arrows Capital, that the crypto ecosystem space was far more fragile and fragile than we wanted to believe.  The shock and fear caused by the the overall loss of the crypto market valuation makes it probable that a number of projects will evaporate under the pressures we are seeing.  Conseqeuntly, only projects with committed development teams, secure programmimg, an active supportive community, and an understanding of the long term applications that blockchain offers to the world will survive. In my opinion Cardano stands out as one of the ones that give us everything required for success and worldwide acceptance.  

   So here are some facts from IOHK about Cardano that are well worth taking note of:

There are over 5.1 million native tokens and 1004 projects currently being built on the Cardano network adding to the 89 projects already in place. There are 2,790 Plutus Scripts and 5,796 NFT projects. The current launch of the Cardalonia metaverse project cannot be ignored.  Charles Hoskinson, Cardano's Founder, describes Ada as a "solid, futuristic technology" with an advanced programming team that has always focused on thouroughness rather than accelerati0n. In a poll taken recently by London Real TV, Ada came out being more popular than Bitcoin and Ethereum by a wide margin.  Cardano whales are acquiring huge quantities of Ada with the future of the token and the network in mind.  The Vasil hard fork is expected to be deployed in July which will stramline Cardano's smart contract activity.  The Cardano Hydra update is expected to be launched in the third quarter of '22 further increasing the acceptance rate of our native token and network.  The various partnerships highlighted in an earlier post are gradually creating more value and interest in Cardano,  the Dish Network partnership being one of the most significant. The main point here is that behind all of the fear and panic that has smothered the crypto markets in the past few weeks and days, there are still good things happening in the Cardano ecosystem.  Let's be mindful of those good things and the purposeful intentions that launched Cardano in the first place. Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are bigger than any of the individual tokens or projects that make up the crypto world.  The weak will fail, and the strong will survive and grow.  I believe Cardano will continue on the path of development and adoption has been its hallmark from the first day of its inception.   

written by: Eric Hill     published at: Jun 21, 2022