Cardano has no doubt had an interesting year in 2021. Its native token, ADA, had grown from less than 30 cents to its record high above $3. It was a remarkable year filled with firsts for the project, the most notable being the launch of smart contract capability on the network.
As the year 2021 draws to a close, investors are beginning to look towards the new year and what might be in stock for these digital assets. To this end, founder Charles Hoskinson once again took to his YouTube channel, where he explained to 300,000 subscribers in a live video, what they should expect in the coming year.
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DeFi On Cardano
The deployment of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Cardano blockchain has been a long-awaited event for both the network and its supporters. With smart contracts capability launched in September, expectations have grown even more as investors anticipate the launch of the first DeFi protocols. Developers continue to work hard towards this goal.
Hoskison took time to address this important part of the Cardano network as he explained his plan to bring affordable loans to the network through DeFi. He outlines this goal as something he is working towards so that by the second half of 2022, there can be working protocols on the network where people are able to perform end-to-end Microfinance transactions on the blockchain.
“My goal for the second half of 2022 is to figure out how to put all the pieces together to get an end-to-end microfinance transaction on Cardano. So that a real person in Kenya or somewhere with a blockchain-based identity and credit score, stablecoin on the other side, Cardano is the settlement rail,” Hoskinson said.
ADA trading above $1.5 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com
Spreading In Africa
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson did not fail to mention Africa, a continent that has been of real interest to the blockchain. For Hoskinson, bringing these peer-to-peer decentralized finance services to the continent and spreading them so all of the continent can benefit from this. He refers to this spread of realfi (real finance) across the continent as “the dream.”
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He also outlines other projects scheduled to take place on the network. Hoskison lists out plans to enhance the network’s smart contract platform known as Plutus, as well as the three Cardano improvement proposals (CIPS), taking a note from the Ethereum improvement proposals (EIP), that are being worked on by developers that will come into the project.
The founder also acknowledged the growth of the community, which has grown tremendously in 2021. “We’re staging things appropriately, and we’re starting to see a refinement of the science of things,” he said. “The adoption’s there. The community’s there. We’ve grown to about two million people,” Hoskinson added.
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