The Cardano ecosystem is on an expansion rampage and is showing no signs of stopping. To help facilitate all its development projects further, the network is now being injected with a huge amount of investment by blockchain firm EMURGO.
The company, which is Cardano’s commercial arm, tweeted earlier today that it will be investing $100 million into Cardano’s ecosystem to boost development activities in key areas, especially DeFi and NFTs, along with blockchain education.
The investment vehicle aims to invest in early startup and growth stage companies “focused on building socially impactful solutions powered by Cardano,” the company’s blog post stated. This will comprise of two separate entities with their own investment thesis, EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures, the blog further read.
While its Africa branch will be involved in supporting hundreds of regional startups through seed funding and incubation, the second entity will be focused on “developed markets.” The company will provide capital to Cardano-focused startups and middleware solutions companies, especially those building DeFi and NFT projects.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, who seemed hopeful of this development, said,
“EMURGO’s investments will help to shape the future of the Cardano ecosystem [by] growing smart contract capabilities and partnerships across the globe.”
Earlier this month, EMURGO had announced a partnership that would help build Astarter, Cardano’s very own DeFi venture. Since smart contract integration took place on Cardano, many developers have eagerly waited for DeFi protocols to be built upon the network. This huge round of investment might incentivize more projects to flock to the network.
However, Cardano faces stiff competition in this area, as other networks with similar capabilities are also utilizing the same tactics to attract developers. Just yesterday, Ripple announced a $250 million “Creator Fund” that would be distributed to NFT creators and developers wanting to build on the network’s ledger.
On the other hand, Solana dominated the crypto industry all of August, through its dramatic rise to the top on the back of the DeFi and NFT projects built on it. It managed to rake in millions of dollars by selling Ape paintings last month, and continues to attract more users by the day. It also announced the long-awaited “Ignition Hackathon” recently, which will offer several prizes and incentives for next-gen Web3, gaming, and DeFi projects building on its network.
And at last, there is Ethereum, the smart contract premier that still has an almost complete monopoly on the DeFi and NFT space. While scalability issues with the network resulting in exponential gas fees have caused several developers to migrate away from Ethereum, it didn’t seem likely for it to be overtaken by any of its “killers,” anytime soon.
In such a market scenario, Cardano will have to strap its boots in order to really stand out and deliver on the anticipation it is causing within the industry.
