Prominent crypto analyst Alex Saunders of Nugget’s News is unveiling what Cardano must accomplish to have a shot at dethroning Ethereum and become the number one smart contract platform.
In an interview with Altcoin Daily hosts Aaron and Austin Arnold, Saunders contemplates whether Ethereum (ETH) will be able to maintain its status as the number one smart contract platform, or if other projects like Cardano (ADA) will be able to usurp the throne.
Saunders emphasizes that the blockchain race is, as races tend to be, all about timing.
While Saunders expects a future in which multiple chains run interoperably, side-by-side, he does anticipate that there will be a frontrunner. For now, Ethereum is leading the pack. However, the analyst notes that if the platform cannot scale quickly and gas fees remain prohibitively expensive for small traders, users will likely migrate to other platforms.
“All these chains hopefully will be interoperable… It’s really all about the timing. If Ethereum drags its heels and it’s $100 for gas fees for months on end, well I’d probably expect them to lose a lot of market share to Binance Smart Chain.”
The analyst remarks that Cardano also needs to launch smart contracts sooner rather than later. The development team behind the Ethereum competitor, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), announced in April that smart contract functionality would arrive on the blockchain this August.
Saunders highlights that if the team isn’t able to provide comparable decentralized finance (DeFi) products to what already exists on rival blockchains, it will have major trouble competing in the market.
“Cardano, they really have to get things going. I don’t know how much longer they can wait. They really need to get things out if you want to compete because you’ve got Solana (SOL) and Polkadot (DOT) – these other ecosystems [are] really starting to develop.
And let’s say Cardano takes another six months or a year to really come out with their versions of Uniswap and the DeFis, the oracles, the everything, then you’re really going to be jumping up and down saying, ‘Me too, me too,’ at that point aren’t you? Because what’s your point difference to these other ecosystems that have started to build network effects and they’re faster and this and that and the other. Ethereum’s got to scale, got to move to proof of stake, these other chains have got to attract developers and what not.”
l
