Cardano may need Africa more than Africa needs Cardano as the DeFi battle heats up

• Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, will embark on a tour of Africa next week to meet with startups working on projects using his blockchain.
• According to Hoskinson, Cardano and its native token ADA can provide Africa countries with a more stable monetary alternative to traditional banking.
• For Cardano, the competition in decentralised finance (DeFi) is heating up with more competitors joining the fray.
• Hoskinson’s strategy to push for Cardano in a relatively untapped market could help the blockchain survive the tussle.

The 33-year old founder of Cardano and chief executive of Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), Charles Hoskinson, will be crossing the entire length of Africa next week to meet with startups using his blockchain to solve local problems.


According to him, countries in Africa are in need of a safe and strong financial system. The continent’s young population and rising digital adoption coupled with the lack of any legacy monetary systems makes it a ripe destination for Cardano to thrive — or at least try.


While the economic needs of Africa cannot be understated, Cardano has its own objectives to meet. It’s already caught in a battle against new competitors in the space of decentralised finance (DeFi) looking to be the next ‘Ethereum Killers’ and, now, Ethereum itself plans to wipe out Cardano’s primary competitive edge by becoming more energy efficient by next year.

More recently, despite hosting the Cardano Summit in September — which included a slew of announcements including commercial offices specifically for Africa — the blockchain’s native token, ADA, has been struggling to stay in the green even as the global crypto market has been recovering.

African countries have historically struggled with issues of infrastructure problems, which have resulted in financial services being less accessible to the common man. Cryptocurrency, arguably, could provide an alternative to traditional banking.

Cardano had the advantage of being the first platform to popularise the use of PoS. However, since its launch 2017, it’s not the only cryptocurrency bidding to be the ‘Ethereum Killer’. Others like Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot and others have also seen an increased market value, which usually indicates a proportional rise in user interest.

Once Ethereum joins the band of being energy efficient, the climb will only get harder for Cardano. ADA may be fourth biggest cryptocurrency on the market as of today, October 14, but this is after it lost its coveted third ranking during September’s FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Moreover, ADA has a gap of over $300 billion to make up for if it plans on being as big as Ether.


The larger question is one of survival. One cryptocurrency doesn’t need to beat out another in order to exist in the future, but it does need mass adoption — both in terms of users and developers — to stand against the test of time.

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