- Cardano promised a lot but delivered slowly—and sparsely.
- Devs left due to Plutus and Haskell’s complexity; user adoption lagged badly.
- ADA’s still down over 85%, with little ecosystem traction despite years of headlines.
Alex Mason didn’t hold back. His thread on X today hit like a slap—brutally honest and kinda hard to argue with. While a bunch of altcoins are either mooning or pivoting like crazy, Cardano (ADA) seems stuck… like, properly frozen in time. Raised $60 million, promised the moon, and here we are—still wondering what went wrong.
So let’s rewind for a sec. Cardano launched back in 2017 with a ton of hype. It had this sleek academic angle—“peer-reviewed blockchain,” led by Charles Hoskinson, one of Ethereum’s original co-founders. It sounded smarter, sharper, more serious. But execution? Painfully slow. Like glacial. Ethereum had smart contracts by 2015. Cardano? Didn’t get them live until 2021. By then, Solana and Avalanche were running laps.
Wrong Language, Wrong Time
The big misstep? Cardano built Plutus, a smart contract platform based on Haskell. That’s a programming language barely anyone uses. Instead of attracting devs, it scared ’em off. Some tried to build on it, most just bailed—or never even showed up. So Cardano ended up with a sky-high valuation (we’re talkin’ $30B at one point) but almost no real projects to show for it.
Now it’s mid-2025, and the numbers are… kinda sad. TVL is sitting at around $250M. Ethereum? $60B+. Cardano’s daily active users hover near 1,000. NFT activity? Crickets. Sure, Clay Nation and SpaceBudz made a little noise—but it never stuck. No standout marketplaces, no sticky communities. The whole thing fizzled.
The Hoskinson Problem
Then there’s Charles. The guy’s got a bit of a rep. He’s blocked critics, clapped back at randoms online, made a bunch of promises that never landed. Even his academic backstory—supposedly a PhD dropout—has been questioned. Some folks say he was never even enrolled.
Cardano also loved to name-drop flashy partnerships. Remember the Ethiopia deal? The New Balance thing? Mongolia credentials? They made headlines… and then kinda disappeared. No real progress. Just quiet.
Price Down, Promises Up
Price-wise, ADA peaked at $3.10 back in 2021. Today? Chillin’ around $0.50. That’s over 85% down. And while Bitcoin’s been smashing all-time highs in 2025, ADA’s just… still sitting there. Meme coins are up. Layer 2s are booming. Even ancient altcoins are alive again. But ADA? Barely twitched.
Instead of chasing real growth—users, builders, products—Cardano focused on abstract stuff. TPS stats. Scaling theory. “Hydra” was supposed to deliver a million transactions per second. That was back in 2020. So far? One basic game demo. That’s it.
A Harsh Lesson in Hype vs. Reality
Hoskinson’s latest strategy—selling ADA for Bitcoin, then buying back ADA later—sounds more like a meme than a plan. It’s been eight years, countless whitepapers, and honestly? Still no breakout.
Bottom line: ideas are great. Peer review is cool. But adoption? Usage? Builders? That’s what actually moves the needle.
And Cardano, despite all the noise and the PhD vibes, just hasn’t delivered.
