CardStarter And SundaeSwap — A Falling Out Story

CardStarter holders were expecting free money from the SundaeSwap team, but they ended up essentially getting liquidated instead.

Covered:

• What Happened Between The Two?
• The Chaos That Ensued

What Happened Between The Two?

There’s a lot of information to unpack regarding the controversy, and both sides had a lot to say about who was to blame for the situation, so I won’t spend the time boring you with all the small details. If you want a full synopsis on the issue, I recommend checking out this Medium post.

The issue started in April 2021, when Cardstarter announced that it would be launching its own DEX. Its founders incentivized investors to provide liquidity on the platform on Uniswap to receive native CSWAP tokens.

However, the team ended up landing a deal with SundaeSwap in June 2021, marking a “merger” between the two platforms. As part of the agreement, Cardstarter would provide liquidity to the SundaeSwap DEX instead of carrying out its plans to create its own DEX and receive early access to the SundaeSwap DEX by holding CSWAP as an incentive. CardStarter fans were repeatedly assured that they would be compensated well.

Then, as defined in October, CardStarter LP providers were anticipating an airdrop pool of 150 million SUNDAE tokens (out of a 2 billion supply). A tweet from the Cardstarter team revealed the conversation between CardStarter CEO Aatash Amir and SundaeSwap team members, agreeing to set aside 150 million SUNDAE tokens for the CardStarter partnership.

In light of SundaeSwap's announcement, we share the following documents which we feel speak for themselves.

We will continue to fight for the CSWAP community. pic.twitter.com/6oM2rdcKYF

— CardStarter (@CardStarter) January 24, 2022

However, an unexpected comment from Artem Wright, a co-founder of SundaeSwap, shows that the team was now slashing that reward pool down to just 10 million SUNDAE tokens from the 150 million tokens that were promised back in October.

The news sent CARDS price plummeting even further, and both communities were sure to let the CardStarter and SundaeSwap teams hear their frustration.

The Chaos That Ensued

On top of the fact that CardStarter’s price performance has been basically “down only” since incentivizing liquidity providers to participate back in April, it’s safe to say that members of both communities are less-than pleased right now after hearing that the rewards they thought they had reaped just got cut 15x.

The market is down bad but CardStarter holders are having it even worse than us it seems… pic.twitter.com/aKXlQqRIrz

— Devchart 👨🏻‍💻 (@devchart) January 21, 2022

SundaeSwap fans have already been experiencing frustration over the past few weeks as some investors have endured failed transactions and extreme delays in receiving native SUNDAE tokens for the DEX.

I tried to buy the SundaeSwap launch on Cardano. It didn't work at all, chain is congested, my txs failed and price has moved so not buying anymore.

But the Discord is lots of fun. pic.twitter.com/9BWhu9p0pG

— Cobie (@cobie) January 20, 2022

Shortly after the situation leaked online to social media, both communities were up in arms about who was to blame, and the social media accounts of CardStarter and SundaeSwap even took jabs at one another.

SundaeSwap released a Medium post addressing the situation.

“SundaeSwap had been engaging with CardStarter on expanding our relationship to include an agreement where SUNDAE tokens could be earned by CardStarter investors that moved their holdings to the SundaeSwap DEX. However, despite giving the CardStater team the flexibility we felt they needed to address these important issues, no agreement has been reached and no substantive proposal has been made by the CardStarter team.”

Some from the CardStarter community feel as though this message is straight gaslighting from SundaeSwap, as Cardstarter highlighted that the deal was agreed to back in October, as previously mentioned. SundaeSwap does plan on making some amends, though they acknowledge their actions don’t necessarily cover the losses that Cardstarter LP providers incurred.

“…In light of the apparent representations made to CardStarter investors by CardStarter based on our name and project, the SundaeSwap team will provide a cross-chain airdrop of 20,000,000 SUNDAE tokens to holders of CSWAP tokens as of January 20…We do not expect that this airdrop will make anyone ‘whole’ or make up for the distress of the last few days. But we are limited in the steps that we can take particularly given the lack of substantive proposals from CardStarter.”

In a not-so-great look for the highly-anticipated Cardano ecosystem, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, even chimed in on the debacle over YouTube, telling each of the respective teams to “get your shit together.” 

“Please, people, get your shit together. Both sides come together, agree to arbitration, talk to each other, and figure out whatever the hell you agree to get done. And if you can’t somehow survive the arbitration process, the courts are always available to you.”

The story is still developing, but the lesson to be taken here is clear; don’t invest your life savings into a promise, and don’t always anticipate promises from random online communities to be fulfilled.