Cardano: strengthening the ecosystem through DeFi and NFT projects
Why NFT projects increase the inflow of investment in Cardano
Memes have become one of the significant cultural phenomena of the 21st century and have found application in non-fungible tokens (NFTs). For blockchain developers, NFTs have become one way to increase the ecosystem's popularity, the number of users, and investment.
In turn, the influx of new users and investors helps attract more developers to expand the number of decentralized applications, strengthening the ecosystem.
After the launch of NFT projects, the Cardano ecosystem attracted additional tens of millions of dollars.
Examples of successful NFT projects on Cardano
SpaceBudz
SpaceBudz was the first NFT collection on Cardano to trade over $1 million, and one of SpaceBud's NFT tokens, number #9936, was sold for a record 510,000 ADA (~$539,000 at the current altcoin exchange rate).
The price of another NFT token, SpaceBud #1502, reached 3,599,999 ADA or about $3.8 million at the current exchange rate, but it was never sold. SpaceBudz's NFT collection also tops the Cardano ecosystem regarding cumulative trading volume, which exceeded $46 million.
The Ape Society
In a way, The Ape Society is analogous to one of Ethereum's most sought-after NFT collections, known as the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). Unsurprisingly, the collection featuring illustrations of monkeys has also become very popular in the Cardano ecosystem.
The Ape Society collection had the second-highest bidding volume ($32 million), and the most expensive NFT was sold for $105,000 about three years ago.
Clay Nation
In 2021, the creators of Clay Nation released an NFT collection called Clay Mates, the first on the Cardano blockchain to contain digital images with frame-by-frame animation. The success of the first collection that same year inspired the founders to create Clay Nation, which ended up being even more successful.
Clay Nation ranked fifth in the Cardano ecosystem regarding NFT collection trading volume ($22.8 million), and the rarest NFT depicting angel wings was sold for 80,000 ADA.
Boss Cat Rocket Club
This NFT collection ranks sixth in bidding volume ($22.2 million) and differs little in type from The Ape Society or Clay Nation, except for the images with cats. Judging by the name and appearance of NFT tokens, the creators of Boss Cat Rocket Club were inspired by the BAYC project.
Pavia
This NFT project is the first virtual world or metaverse in the Cardano ecosystem and, in many ways, resembles Decentraland or The Sandbox on the Ethereum blockchain. As in the above metaverses, Pavia players can own and trade virtual plots of land, the value of which is determined by their rarity (there will be 100,000 in total).
As of January 2025, Pavia already has more than 20,000 virtual land parcel holders and is one of the leaders in terms of the number of holders. This NFT project ranked seventh in the Cardano ecosystem in terms of trading volume, which amounted to $17.4 million.
DeFi Projects
DeFi projects provide the functionality for the Cardano blockchain: thanks to them, users can exchange cryptocurrency on DEX exchanges, receive and issue loans through lending protocols, buy and sell NFT on marketplaces, and perform other financial transactions. The more financial services available in the ecosystem, the more attractive it will be to users.
According to the January 2025 DeFi Llama, the total blockchain value (TVL) of all DeFi projects on Cardano is $480.2 million, which has grown more than 1.5 times in one year. Below are examples of the most successful DeFi projects in the Cardano ecosystem.
Liqwid
Liqwid is the leading DeFi platform in the Cardano ecosystem regarding total blockchain value (TVL), which is $131.2 million as of January 2025.
The Liqwid platform is a lending platform that allows users to lend or receive cryptocurrency on credit secured against digital assets in the Cardano ecosystem, such as ADA, wanUSDT, wanUSDC, MIN, SHEN, COPI, and many others.
Minswap
No DeFi ecosystem like Ethereum, Solana, or Cardano can function without a decentralized exchange (DEX). After all, the DEX exchange provides the possibility of decentralized exchange (swap) of tokens without the need to use centralized marketplaces such as Binance, Coinbase, or OKX.
If the Uniswap platform occupies the leading role among decentralized exchanges in the Ethereum ecosystem, Minswap is in the lead in Cardano. Regarding TVL, which is ~$118 million, Minswap significantly surpasses the pioneer SundaeSwap, which ranks only eighth among all DeFi projects in the Cardano ecosystem and third among DEX exchanges.
Indigo
Indigo is a decentralized platform for issuing synthetic assets (iAssets) via smart contracts, using collateral similar to that of other tokens in the Cardano ecosystem.
Indigo belongs to the RWA (real-world assets) sector, one of the most trending and fastest-growing sectors in the blockchain industry. This could favorably impact the development of the entire Cardano ecosystem. According to the DeFi LLama service for January 2025, Indigo's TVL is $85.2 million.
Splash Protocol
Another DEX exchange that, like Minswap, beat one of the first DeFi protocols, SundaeSwap, regarding total blockchain value. The Splash Protocol team is positioning their platform not just as a DEX exchange but as an entire DeFi infrastructure for efficient trading of digital assets.
DeFi Llama says Splash Protocol's total blockchain DeFi value is nearly $43 million.
Djed
No blockchain platform is without its stablecoin. The Djed platform was developed for the Cardano blockchain to issue a partially algorithmic stablecoin of the same name, backed by ADA and SHEN tokens.
Djed ranks fifth in terms of TVL in the Cardano ecosystem — this figure is $32.4 million. So far, both in terms of market capitalization and liquidity, DJED is not comparable to the leading crypto market stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, or USDe. However, the very fact that DJED has its own stablecoin in the ecosystem says a lot about the development of Cardano's DeFi infrastructure.