What's Wrong With Cardano? ADA Community Debates
2024-10-20

Rick McCracken, a notable contributor to the Cardano ecosystem and operator of a staking pool with over 200 million locked ADA tokens, recently highlighted concerns regarding the Cardano community's approach to marketing and visibility.
In his latest post, McCracken highlighted a growing divide among community members regarding the need for marketing efforts, venture capital support and liquidity incentives for ADA.
His comments come as several influential figures on X have expressed skepticism about ADA's market capitalization, which exceeds that of several popular meme cryptocurrencies. They have noted that in the current market cycle, ADA's $12.5 billion valuation seems disproportionate when compared to meme coins such as WIF and PEPE, which have smaller market caps but more engaged audiences.
Me: Cardano needs marketing.
Them: Nooo! Waste of monies.
Me: Cardano needs VC support for founders.
Them: Nooo! VCs bad.
Me: Cardano needs liquidity incentives.
Them: Nooo! Fake metrics.
Sometimes I wonder 🤦‍♂️— Rick McCracken DIGI 🇺🇸 (@RichardMcCrackn) October 19, 2024
ADA's proponents emphasize its underlying blockchain ecosystem and significant research and development efforts.Source: CoinMarketCap
However, the ongoing debate suggests that the lack of marketing and promotional activity may hinder ADA's ability to attract broader attention in the competitive cryptocurrency landscape.
Flaw of attention flow
Dissatisfaction with Cardano's marketing strategy is evident, with some community members advocating a focus on development relationships.
However, McCracken pointed out that simply improving the developer experience may not be enough. He stressed the need to explore different strategies to increase Cardano's visibility and engagement in the market.
This ongoing discussion reflects a pivotal moment for Cardano as it faces the challenges of promoting its ecosystem and ensuring it remains relevant in an increasingly crowded field.
Is it all about attention, and if Cardano doesn't do any marketing and promotion, and doesn't have the hype and attention of these meme coins, does it deserve its numbers?