Two Cardano Projects Shut Down

Ardana (DANA) Halts Development

Ardana, a promising decentralized finance (DeFi) project on the Proof-of-Stake Cardano (ADA) blockchain, has announced its shutdown.

“Hello Ardana community,

Unfortunately, due to recent developments regarding funding and project timeline uncertainty, the Ardana project has had to come to a halt. Our code will remain open source for builders to continue our work going forward as they wish.”

— Ardana – DeFi Hub of Cardano (@ArdanaProject) November 24, 2022

The project's announcement cites funding issues and project timeline uncertainties as reasons for the shutdown. Ardana positioned itself as the “first all-in-one stablecoin ecosystem on Cardano,” featuring stablecoin dUSD, AMM DEX Danaswap, and governance token DANA.

Launched a year ago after raising $10 million in November last year, with backing from Three Arrows Capital, cFund, and Ascensive Assets, Ardana aimed to be the “MakerDAO and Curve Finance of Cardano.”

The announcement states:

“Development on Cardano has been challenging due to high costs for tools, infrastructure, and security, coupled with project delays. This has led us to the decision to cease development of dUSD today.”

Despite the shutdown, Ardana’s code remains open-source for future development by other teams. Ardana Labs will hold the remaining budget temporarily until a new team takes over.

As of writing, DANA has dropped more than 83% in the past 24 hours, trading at $0.01. The token peaked at $9.29 in September 2021, according to CoinMarketCap.

Orbit Faces Similar Fate

Orbit is also ending its development, citing the same reasons as Ardana.

“Hey all,

Unfortunately, due to constrained funding and uncertain conditions, Orbis Labs is unable to continue building and the project has come to a halt. This is unfortunate given the amazing research and work that has been produced.”

— Orbis (@orbisproject) November 24, 2022

Orbit was a layer-2 solution using zkSNARK technology for scaling and transaction throughput. It had sought funding of 1 million ADA from the Catalyst Fund 8 round, which ended in May.

According to Reddit user u/demesisx, Orbit failed to present a working demo and therefore could not secure funding. Additionally, Orbis CEO Ryan Matovu is also the founder of Ardana.

The community has expressed frustration and anger over their investments being lost.

Before Ardana and Orbit, several other projects struggled through the current harsh market conditions and were forced to exit the crypto space, including FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, Voyager, Zipmex, Vauld, Hodlnaut, Core Scientific, among others.

The news of Ardana and Orbit’s shutdown comes just days after the Cardano development team announced plans to launch its own stablecoin and develop a privacy-focused blockchain with an independent token.