‘Large Wave’ of DApps Arriving in Coming Months, Says Cardano Founder

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says that “a large wave” of new projects will come to the network in the next few months.

The executive, who is also CEO of Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), retweeted a post that talks of 500-plus potential projects on the network, including decentralized exchanges, non-fungible tokens, metaverse, and gaming, among others.

His comments come as the total value locked (TVL) on Cardano’s decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols crossed a record high. At the time of writing, Cardano’s TVL stands at $192.35m across its six protocols, according to DefiLlama.

Since the Alonzo upgrade last year, Cardano has seen liquidity provision DEXs built on the chain, including SundaeSwap (SUNDAE), Minswap (MIN), MuesliSwap (MILK), and ADAX Pro (ADAX).

Additionally, VyFinance (VYFI) and Meld (MELD) are also DeFi protocols on the network since Cardano incorporated the smart contracts upgrade.

Vasil hardfork due in June

Hoskinson has also shed light on Cardano’s Vasil hardfork upgrade, which is likely to launch in June.

Hoskinson previously stated that the Jan to June window was crucial to Cardano. “The next hard fork combinator event is in June, and that’s going to bring up a lot of the Plutus improvements that people like the CDA [Cardano DeFi Alliance] recommend, and what we’ve learned from working with Plutus developers,” he said.

Cardano can also expect the launch of “end-to-end microfinance” transactions in the latter half of this year. These will include “pipelining, new Plutus CIPs, UTXO on-disk storage, and Hydra,” IOHK, the company behind Cardano, said earlier this year.

With several new decentralized projects (dApps) in the offing, the Cardano chief believes that the network is yet to reach its potential TVL.

However, Ethereum remains the undisputed king of the DeFi space, holding nearly 54% of the entire TVL. Cardano is 28th.

Cardano has come in for criticism in the last six months for its weak price action. After reaching an all-time high of $3.09 in Sept 2021, Cardano is now down over 70%. 

IOHK notes that the team “is working across a host of new products and features, from a dApp store and a new light wallet product to Mithril fast sync solution and sidechains.”