Cardano projects Ardana and Orbis call it quits, community cries foul play

The Cardano community is left wondering what happened as Ardana and Orbis end project development.

Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate

Social media chatter is rife with speculation on Cardano projects Ardana and Orbis, which both announced ending development on the same day.

Ardana calls it a day

Ardana pitched itself as the “first all-in-one stablecoin ecosystem built on Cardano.” The ecosystem consisted of the dUSD stablecoin, an AMM DEX called Danaswap, and the DANA governance token.

In November 2021, the project raised $10 million in a strategic funding round led by Three Arrows Capital, CFund, and Ascensive Assets. At the time, CEO and co-founder Ryan Matovu said:

“Along with the investors’ expertise, this funding will allow us to establish Ardana as one of the premier defi gateways on the Cardano blockchain. The future is bright.”

Fast forward to now, a post from the company’s Twitter announced the end of development due to “recent developments” and “funding and project timeline uncertainty.”

Hello Ardana community,

Unfortunately due to recent developments with regards to funding and project timeline uncertainty, the Ardana project has had to come to a halt. Our code will remain open source for builders to continue our work going forward as they wish.

— Ardana – DeFi Hub of Cardano (@ArdanaProject) November 24, 2022

The DANA token sunk 77.8% following the announcement, recording a new all-time low of $0.01158415 in the process. DANA launched on Nov. 22, 2021, and achieved an all-time high of $11.27 three days following its launch.

The tweet thread continued by saying development “has been difficult” with the funding going towards “tooling, infrastructure, and security.” In conjunction with “uncertainty around development completion,” it was decided the best course of action would be to halt development.

Ardana appealed to other developers to take over the project, with the remaining funds held in reserve to finance the move. Details on what funds remain were not disclosed in the tweet thread.

Orbis follows suit

In quick succession, Orbis also notified the Cardano community that it too was ending development citing “constrained funding and uncertain conditions.”

Hey all of

Unfortunately due to constrained funding and uncertain conditions, Orbis Labs is unable to continue building and the project as come to a halt. This is unfortunate given the amazoing research and work that has been produced.

— Orbis (@orbisproject) November 24, 2022

Orbis is a layer 2 solution utilizing zkSNARK roll-up technology to aid scaling and higher throughput.

Orbis applied for 1 million ADA funding during the Catalyst Fund 8 round, which concluded in May.

According to Reddit user u/demesisx, concerns were raised over the lack of a working demo while requesting all the funding be paid upfront. The concerns resulted in the community turning down Orbis’s funding application.

The Orbis Project CEO is Ryan Matovu, who also founded Ardano.

Cardano community speculates

In response to the news, @cardano_whale alleged that both projects were a rug pull. Similarly, @biscoin_io posted a screengrab from Orbis, dated Nov. 23, that spoke of “halting the public NFT sale,” captioned with “you were warned early.”

Failed RUG

you were warned early 😉$DANA #ORBIS pic.twitter.com/XgXkey7WbF

— Bison Coin (@bisoncoin_io) November 23, 2022

Cardano users have reported losing funds, with @CardanoPolice claiming to be down CAD$25,000 ($18,700). Several commenters echoed losing funds as well while expressing regret over ignoring the red flags.