Cardano projects SundaeSwap and CardStarter squabble over failed promises to investors

The ongoing drama between two projects built on the Cardano (ADA) blockchain escalated across multiple social media platforms Monday, much to the dismay of the ADA community.

The issues began in April when accelerator program CardStarter announced it would launch its own decentralized exchange or DEX. Shortly thereafter, its founders incentivized investors to provide liquidity for the project on Uniswap in exchange for native CSWAP tokens. The platform’s developers landed an agreement with a third-party DEX called SundaeSwap sometime later, marketing the deal as a “merger” last June. As per the agreement, CardStarter would no longer develop its promised DEX, and would instead provide liquidity to the existing SundaeSwap DEX.

As told by Reddit user “Environmental-Law768”, investors were later promised “great benefits” during a YouTube ask-me-anything session for CSWAP holders in the SundaeSwap DEX. Last week, however, it was revealed that these so-called benefits would simply be a conversion from CSWAP to CardStarter’s native CARDS tokens ($3.14 at time of writing), at a rate of 400:1. Holders who had locked in $15M (at the time of reveal) worth of liquidity on the platform seemed to feel this was a slap in the face, amounting to no meaningful reward for their efforts. Allegations of a rug pull soon followed.

Both SundaeSwap and CardStarter took to social media to place blame over the investor fallout on each other — much to the disapproval of ADA enthusiasts and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.

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

According to a SundaeSwap statement cited by Hoskinson, the June deal was purely a marketing and collaboration agreement. However, the SundaeSwap team acknowledged using misguided terms on multiple occasions when communicating with users. To make matters worse, the freshly launched SundaeSwap DEX has already suffered from numerous user reports of failed transactions. 

During a YouTube stream Monday afternoon, Cardano founder Hoskinson condemned the heated exchanges between the parties. Hoskinson elaborated it was unacceptable for the fiduciary organizations involved, SundaeSwap and CardStarter, to use Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, and other channels in social media to make their case. “It’s despicable. It doesn’t do anything other than try to abdicate your personal responsibility and damage the brand of the ecosystem as a whole,” said Hoskinson, continuing:

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.