Cardano-based Stablecoin Project Ardana Halts Development Citing Funding Concerns

Cardano-based DeFi project Ardana Labs announces abrupt shutdown citing uncertainty in the project timeline.

On Thursday, November 24, the Carano-based decentralized finance (DeFi) project and stablecoin ecosystem Ardana halted the development citing project timeline uncertainty and funding issues.

Development of Stablecoin Project Ardana

Ardana Labs said that the project will continue to remain an open source for builders. However, treasury balances and remaining funds will be held by Ardana Labs “until another competent dev team in the community comes forward to continue our work”.

Ardana Labs was just a year into its development and had raised $10 million last year via a funding round led by now-defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Other investors included Ascensive Assets and Cardano’s cFund.

Additionally, Ardana Labs was also working on stablecoin minting and foreign exchange reserves. The platform aspired to be “the MakerDAO and the Curve Finance of Cardano”. On its Twitter account, Ardana Labs wrote:

“Development on Cardano has been difficult with a lot of funding going into tooling, infrastructure and security. This alongside the uncertainty around development completion has led to the best course of action being halting development of dUSD. We want to thank all of you for your support throughout our development. We will continue to be involved in the Cardano community.”

DANA Token Price Crashes 80%

Soon after the announcement by Ardana Labs, the price of its native cryptocurrency DANA tanked by a staggering 80% in the last 24 hours. The price of DANA has been on a decline over the last year amid declining Cardano staking yields due to the ongoing crypto winter.

The sudden decision from Ardana Labs has come as a major shock to the crypto community. Earlier this year in January, Ardana Labs claimed that “almost all of the product/smart contract development is finished. We could launch our products within a few weeks if we so wanted”. However, they couldn’t do it due to Cardano network’s “liquidation issues” and “risk to users’ funds”.

To fund its operations, Ardana also held an ongoing initial stake pool offering, or ISPO since July 4. However, it seems that Ardana has been quite successful in its efforts. Some crypto community members have blamed Ardana for the entire episode. An anonymous user named Lucid wrote:

“Sounds like you’re blaming Cardano for your own lack of motivation and dedication. You decided to build here for a reason And now you’re giving up. Others like Axo will come in and take all the glory”.