Deep Dive on the Trump Reserve Token Whose Blockchain Ignores TVL

Trading volumes for Cardano’s ADA token have exploded of late with each day figures averaging round $720 million in February whereas exceeding a mean of $1.4 billion in March.

This rise was spurred by a social media submit by U.S. President Donald Trump, who talked about ADA as one in all the tokens that will be included in the nation’s strategic crypto reserve.

Although Cardano is having fun with its second of mainstream consideration, the layer-1 blockchain has been quietly rising as a crypto juggernaut because it went stay in late 2017.

Adoption metrics

The ADA token has a market cap of $25.6 billion however what’s extra notable is what’s beneath the hood; information from Google exhibits that the Cardano blockchain has greater than 5 million distinctive wallets and 1.3 million delegators, with 1000’s of latest wallets being created per day.

The blockchain additionally has $329 million in whole worth locked (TVL), though Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard believes that metric is overemphasized by crypto communities.

Instead, he factors to “non-value transactions” related to folks conducting real-world – albeit non-financial – actions on blockchain rails: Minting a decentralized ID, monitoring metadata, recording paperwork, that form of factor. Cardano’s a hotbed of such exercise, he stated.

“I’m fighting to ensure that 50% of the activity is a non-value transaction,” Gregaard instructed CoinDesk.

One instance of that is Cardano’s partnership with Veritree, which noticed the Cardano group donate over 1 million ADA tokens to plant 1 million mangrove timber in Kenya, with every donation verified and tracked on the blockchain.

Last week, the Cardano Foundation additionally introduced a take care of SERPRO — Brazil’s largest state-owned IT firm – to speed up blockchain adoption in South America. SERPRO processes 33 billion transactions yearly for 90% of Brazil’s federal administration. Additionally, 8,000 workers will even obtain blockchain coaching.

Cardano’s perspective differs from the likes of Solana and the slew of layer-2 networks like Base that delight themselves on whole worth locked (TVL) and hype-driven actions like memecoins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

TVL on Solana grew from $2.2 billion to greater than $10 billion in 2024, Cardano in the meantime zipped from a modest $445 million to $537 million in the similar interval.

DeFi on Cardano

Whilst Cardano Foundation’s CEO stated his focus is on real-world use instances, the blockchain nonetheless boasts a bustling DeFi ecosystem beneath the floor.

Minswap is Cardano’s native decentralized trade (DEX). Its cumulative buying and selling quantity hit $3.4 billion this month with December alone notching a near-record $271 million, DefiLlama information exhibits.

There are additionally numerous lending protocols together with Liqwid, Lenfi and Optim Finance, with TVL throughout Cardano’s lending sector exceeding $116 million.

But the key a part of Gregaard’s mission, he insists, is to not exceed that fifty% degree for financialized transactions. He sees it as staying consistent with the Cardano Foundation’s non-profit ethos, even when it limits potential exponential development of hype-fueled actions like memecoins.

Cardano Foundation vs Hoskinson vs Emurgo

Fulfilling that ethos has its personal challenges, largely as a result of the blockchain is run by three fundamental entities: the Cardano Foundation, Charles Hoskinson’s IOG and Emurgo. The latter two are business companies, which might trigger friction between them and the basis.

“The intent of having a non-profit was that you can optimize decision-making based on 10 years, it’s different than if you optimize decision-making tomorrow,” Gregaard added.

Some of the friction was highlighted by an nameless Cardano group member in December, who penned an electronic mail on a path ahead and detailed how the entities working Cardano have been at loggerheads.

“CF’s recent burst of activity is part of a larger strategic play—an attempt to undermine Charles, IOG, Intersect, and the broader governance roadmap,” the electronic mail learn.

“It’s been a long and difficult road, but I do agree with some of the sentiments of the whistleblower,” Hoskinson wrote in response on X.

Gregaard, nonetheless, was extra diplomatic about any potential rift.

“There’s no monetary exchange going on between us, but we do work very closely together,” he stated.

“We sometimes go to [a conference] and we share a booth. So we come together and we sponsor booths together, that’s the closest you will get to any affiliates, which is very different compared to both the Ethereum foundation or Tezos foundation, where they basically control the Treasury and control the disbursements.”

“On the flip side, we [Cardano Foundation] are the liability umbrella for the community and the blockchain, which means that we are the one who interacts with the SEC and the CSDC and the FMA, and I negotiated MICA with the European Parliament.”