The ongoing rivalry between Cardano and Solana took a playful turn recently, sparked by a humorous fake news article. Nansen CEO, Alex Svanevik, shared a satirical piece on X, claiming the founder of Solana-based protocol Solend (now Save Protocol) had been arrested for attempting to smuggle 20,000 condoms into Singapore. This bizarre report added fuel to the ongoing banter between both crypto communities.

The fabricated article hinted the condoms were for Solana’s Breakpoint event in Singapore, a major crypto conference. Svanevik humorously compared it to “bringing 20,000 steaks to a vegan festival.” Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, jumped in on the fun. He remarked that the Solend founder simply wanted to “safely” use Solana’s blockchain, a playful jab at Solana’s past struggles with network outages.

Solana has faced a string of outages, most recently in February 2024, when the network went down for five hours. A similar outage occurred in September 2023, lasting 17 hours. Solana has also struggled with congestion during periods of high demand, notably in April this year and in early 2022. Despite these problems, Solana boasts impressive transaction speeds, often processing over 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), with average fees hovering around $0.00025 per transaction.

Cardano vs. Solana: A Battle of Words

This isn’t the first time Hoskinson has taken a jab at Solana. Following Solana’s February outage, he subtly critiqued the network, and last year he questioned Solana’s choice of name for its hackathon, “Grizzlython.” This feud stretches back to 2022 when Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko made a derisive comment about Cardano, further igniting tensions between the two communities.

In response to the fake news, Solend’s founder, Rooster, joined in the fun, sharing the article with a joke about Singapore’s bail laws. He even posted a photo of a branded condom, adding, “At least one made it through customs.”

The rivalry between Cardano and Solana continues—this time, with a bit of humor.

Bitcoin’s first main improve in 4 years has activated, with builders now in a position so as to add new options to enhance privateness, scalability and safety on the bitcoin blockchain—at the same time as some warn bitcoin is already out of date.

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The bitcoin worth has rocketed during the last 12 months, hovering to an all-time excessive of round $69,000 per bitcoin this week within the run-up to taproot’s activation, nevertheless, the value of ethereum, Binance’s BNB, solana and cardano, have all risen at a far better clip over the past 12 months.

The long-awaited bitcoin improve, known as Taproot, was deployed early Sunday morning and can unlock the potential for bitcoin good contracts, serving to bitcoin compete extra immediately with the likes of ethereum, Binance’s BNB, solana and cardano.

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“The improve might be a macro turning level for evolvability and innovation, merging the perfect of post-SegWit conservatism with the power of latest beginnings,” Ninos Mansor, accomplice at crypto investor Arrington XRP Capital, wrote in a report out final month.

Bitcoin’s newest improve, which incorporates so-called Schnorr signatures that permit extra complicated bitcoin transactions to appear to be simply another transaction, is the primary vital change to the protocol for the reason that introduction of Segregated Witness (SegWit) in 2017. SegWit, designed to assist bitcoin scale, was applied on the peak of the so-called block measurement wars that noticed the bitcoin group riven in two, with one aspect breaking away to create a payments-focused fork of bitcoin, often called bitcoin money.

“4 years within the making, Taproot is a non-contentious proposal, which leaves behind the scar tissue of the block wars and exhibits the market that bitcoin can evolve whereas nonetheless sustaining an ethos of utmost political stability,” Mansor wrote.

Since 2017, bitcoin has more and more been seen as a retailer of worth, extra similar to digital gold than a funds community. Mansor believes this might change as bitcoin’s community is healthier in a position to compete with ethereum, its smaller rivals and even industrial networks like Visa.

“Whereas many of the market has centered on the speedy improvements in ethereum layer tw0, the local weather for bitcoin layer two is evolving extraordinarily rapidly,” Mansor wrote, referring to initiatives constructed on prime of present blockchains that may pace up transactions and cut back prices by shifting them off-chain, including: “Bitcoin might theoretically change into a Visa competitor, with new merchandise that revitalize bitcoin’s capabilities as a medium of alternate.”

Ethereum and its main rivals Binance’s BNB, solana, and cardano have all seen their costs soar during the last 12 months because of booming curiosity in good contract, blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—each largely constructed on prime of ethereum’s community. Many count on Binance’s BNB, solana, and cardano to more and more steal ethereum DeFi and NFT market share because the rival blockchains battle for dominance.

Many within the crypto group have beforehand predicted ethereum might ultimately overtake bitcoin as probably the most invaluable cryptocurrency, with DeFi—the concept that conventional monetary providers might be changed by blockchain-based protocols—and NFTs—utilizing crypto know-how to tokenize all method of digital media and property—serving to to drive ethereum adoption and, in flip, the value of its ether tokens.

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Bitcoin’s layer two Lightning Community, rushing up and reducing the price of bitcoin transactions, is usually cited for instance of how bitcoin might compete with the likes of ethereum, Binance’s BNB, solana, and cardano sooner or later.

“The worth surge we’re seeing in bitcoin this week is about greater than elevated inflows—it’s the results of a mixture of tailwinds which have been constructing for a while,” Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis, wrote in emailed feedback.

“The Taproot improve, which reinforces bitcoin’s good contract performance and transaction privateness, reduces its transaction charges and makes Lightning simpler and cheaper to make use of, all of which is able to enhance bitcoin adoption,” added Acheson. “What’s extra, it serves as a reminder that bitcoin is a brand new know-how and never only a retailer of worth.”

“Bitcoin’s Taproot improve comes well timed as improvement on the bitcoin blockchain has been accelerating rapidly this 12 months,” Paolo Ardoino, the chief know-how officer at Bitfinex, wrote in emailed feedback. “Taproot will ship extra scalability, privateness and good contract performance on the bitcoin blockchain and significantly expands upon what has been doable up to now. We will count on Taproot to unlock the ability of Lightning Community to convey true scalability to the bitcoin blockchain, readying it to be used in additional complicated operations.”