The cryptocurrency market firmly fell to the bears at the beginning of 2018. Despite the downturn in values across the board, many currencies are taking the time to focus on new projects and move forward – while others are suffering from persistent issues alongside depressed prices. Currencies like Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) have no problem weathering the storm, advancing their projects and increasing their customer base. However, the more conceptual altcoins are suffering. Cardano (ADA) and Nano (NANO) bore the brunt of the bear turn around, dropping 68% and 75% respectively.
Part of this may have to do with their niche status. Although Cardano is in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, they are still some distance from implementing a working product. Most of the focus is on their governance, rather than their performance. Nano, while still the fastest blockchain (or block lattice, rather), exists outside of the environment where speed is a necessity.
Cardano’s Woes and Recent Turn Around
Cardano is a pioneer of the proof-of-stake concept, through their peer-reviewed Ouroboros protocol. Further, their governing board is formed from professionals and developers using the academic model. While high-concept and ultimately stable, their ADA cryptocurrency suffers from the same issue as many other initial altcoins – they are only a digital currency. In a market with intense competition, this may no longer be enough. The addition of smart contract functionality with their second layer may help solve this issue.
In addition, Cardano saw a recent uptick in their price over the course of the past several weeks. Their desire to compete with Ethereum may continue to drive this increase, if they can prove that they are a true rival. Ethereum has the advantage of arriving first, but Cardano’s rigorous standards and cross-language compatibility may give them the edge in the long run.
Nano Strives for Relevance
Nano, formerly Raiblocks, boasts one of the highest transaction speeds in the industry. Their block lattice technology allows for exponentially more transactions per second than the next competing cryptocurrency – with near-zero friction. This was a major talking point at the end of 2017, when Bitcoin and Ethereum both suffered from network slowdowns and traffic jams due to legacy blockchain software.
Unfortunately, that is less of an issue with the market downturn. Further, both chains have rectified the issue to a degree with the Lightning and Raiden networks. Nano also suffered from a high-profile exchange hack that targeted only their currency. Their most recent issue comes with a security flaw in the official Nano wallet. The Nano developers immediately informed all holders to transfer their XRB to another wallet until the situation could be resolved. Although the issue was quickly fixed, Nano will need to perform extraordinarily well to recover in the near term.
Article By: Adam Stone
