The Cardano ISPO fundraising model is an innovative and safe way to raise funds for various project developments. With the end of the Meld Initial Stake Pool Offering (ISPO) and the MinSwap Fair Initial Stake Offering (FISO), we should look at other alternative Cardano pools to stake our ADA for rewards and additional airdrop token rewards from projects building on Cardano and offering Cardano ISPO.
As of writing this, the Meld ISPO isn't quite over yet. It officially finishes at the end of epoch 306 which is December 6th at 21:45 UTC.
Besides delegating to a small stake pool operator, such as ourselves (ADAOZ), there are many alternatives to get the most out of your delegation rewards of ADA.
The main goal for speculators is to stockpile as many cryptocurrencies as possible to hopefully use them as a vehicle of income or retirement.
An Initial Stake Pool Offering is a way for a project to rain capital to pay for developers, lawyers and other operational costs involved in building their project.
There are a lot of positives of an ISPO compared to an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or Initial Decentralised Offering (IDO).
Aada is crypto assets lending platform. A smart contract allows to deposit assets and collect interests or borrow assets and perform financial actions. Aada will bring an ERC20 converter bridge to the ecosystem allowing for users to bring value from the Ethereum blockchain to Cardano.
You will be able to provide liquidity and earn interest rewards, provide collateral and take out loans, or borrow an uncollateralized loan (flash loans). Aada issues an NFT bond which can actually be traded between peers. Anyone with the bond will be able to redeem it for capital and rewards that are locked in the smart contract.
Aada Finance is offering its ISPO to help raise funds for the project and distribute its token to users.
ISPO will run 32 epochs starting September 12th and ending February 19th. However, anyone can join ISPO at any given time, before ISPO ends.
Find out more about the Aada Finance ISPO.
Read the Aada Finance white paper.
Mirqur is a decentralised exchange that is building on Cardano while also being decentrally governed. It takes inspiration from various other projects in the DeFi space including:
The project also takes a formally verified approach with its equations formally verified with the LEAN proof assistant.
The ISPO that the project is offering offers ADA rewards and the Mirqur token. The token will allow users to provide Governance to the protocol and decide on the future of the project in various forms.
Read the Mirqur white paper.
Flickto plans to change how creative projects are funded.
Flickto will fund content creators to produce new Films, TV and Internet Streaming shows that currently have no access to funding or finance. FLICK token holders will be eligible to receive a portion of the distribution profits if the media project is successful. If it is not successful, FLICK token holders take on no risk.
Learn more about the Flickto ISPO.
The RayNetwork started off as RayWallet but expanded to so many other aspects in the DeFi space including a DEX, Kickstart platform, NFT marketplace, NFT explorer and much much more.
The token will be used as payment for those services on the Ray Network platform, such as premium RayNFT marketplace placement, Ray KickStart placement, tokens minting, will be used as a governance token, and yield farming in RaySwap.
Staking to one of the RayNetwork pools will provide that XRAY token. Your ADA rewards remain with you. For this distribution, you do not lose your ADA rewards. You retain your ADA rewards and get XRAY tokens.
Learn more about the Ray Network ISPO.
Learn more about the Ray Network.
SundaeSwap is a decentralised exchange that is making waves in the Cardano ecosystem. Having launched on Testnet on the 2nd of December 2021, they are poised to be the first DEX to launch on Cardano.
The Sundae token distribution will last for only 5 epochs (25 days) and is possible by staking to one of the 30 stake pool operators that have been voted for as the Scooper pools for SundaeSwap. You can find out more about the SundaeSwap ISO from our overview article and FAQs that we have compiled for the project.
Learn more about SundaeSwap.
Empowa plans to provide affordable and greener houses in Africa. It will do this by providing decentralised end-user finance and creating prosperity through the property.
Build a better future portfolio by supporting real on-the-ground financed housing projects with a solid base and an interesting beneficial return.
The Empowa Initial Stake Pool Offering (ISPO) will allow you to become a part of a RealFi opportunity on the Cardano blockchain. Delegating on one of the Empowa pools, you will receive Empowa tokens (EMP). Empowa takes all of your ADA rewards in this case as they use the rewards to fund their project and allow you to earn EMP tokens in exchange.
Holding the Empowa tokens will allow you to have a staked ownership of a property in Africa. Funds will be used to develop property and rent that is collected is distributed back to the token holders as rewards all via smart contracts and identity tokens.
Read more about the Empowa ISPO and the Empowa tokenomics.
Maladex is one of the most complex decentralised exchanges to be built on Cardano. Offering everything under the sun with a combination of automated market makers and other features seen on regular centralised exchanges.
Their ISPO is used to raise funds for the development of the project and you will forfeit any or your ADA rewards for MAL tokens in return.
Learn more about the Maladex ISPO and read the Maladex Whitepaper, it's 88 pages long (you've been warned).
MinSwap went for a different approach to the ISPOs. While many projects created their own pools, MinSwap decided to use existing stake pools in the ecosystem to distribute their tokens. This was seen as a great initiative for the Cardano ecosystem as it helped support small stake pool operators taking some of them from a small less than 2M delegation point to well over 40-50M ADA delegation for some stake pools.
Find out more about the MinSwap FISO and the MinSwap DEX which is set to launch on Testnet.
Meld is a DeFi protocol that plans to provide collateralized loans for stable coins in the Cardano ecosystem.
They were the first project to launch their ISPO to the Cardano community which was met with mixed reactions from various members of the Cardano community.
In total, the project held 650,000,000 ADA in their stake pools generating millions in ADA rewards to grow and launch the project. Meld by far has been the most successful DeFi project to run an ISPO and has paved the way for newer ISPOs in the future.
They pioneered the future of funding projects on Cardano with the ISPO model. Larger projects and organisations certainly are keeping an eye on the ecosystem and looking into Cardano stake pools as a form of funding in the future.
Read about how the emerging ISPO funding model is making waves in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
To participate in an ISPO, you simply need to delegate to that project's stake pool. Search for the projects stake pool and delegate from your wallet. Be sure to check that you have the correct pool as there are usually fake pools that are spun up from time to time by bad operators trying to leverage an existing brands name.
Learn more about how to delegate to a stake pool.
For projects that are taking all of your ADA rewards in exchange for tokens, there are tax implications that you need to be aware of. Every epoch that you are forfeiting your ADA rewards, you are essentially selling your ADA to the project in exchange for their token. As in most jurisdictions, you will need to pay for the tax at the time of receiving the rewards and then again when selling the ADA for the new rewards token.
Please consult a tax accountant or financial advisor to learn more about the tax implications of ISPOs and your situation.
With so many projects offering ISPOs and other rewards for your staking, it makes it very hard to work out what projects to support and get behind. You can simply pick the project and delegate all of your ADA. In most cases, this might be the best option. If you have a lot of ADA though, you may be able to split your ADA holdings into various smaller wallets and delegate to many of these projects.
A good strategy would be to stake in all of the projects and gain a few rewards from all.
Since the projects also have a limited time in which the ISPO will run, you can move your ADA around from pool to pool to be able to capture rewards from all the different projects.
In between those times, you can also delegate to our stake pool. It will help fund the development of content and provide you with more ways to get the most out of your Cardano journey.
We're a small, independent single stake pool operator. We've got a long way to go before we are completely self-sufficient and continuously producing blocks for the community. Our stake pool infrastructure costs money and time to support. Search for us with ticker: ADAOZ.
Learn how to delegate to us using Daedalus or delegate with the Yoroi wallets.
How to Stake ADA on Yoroi Wallet
Podcast: How to Stake Cardano & Understanding Rewards Payout
Calculate How Much ADA You Will Get From Staking
Use ticker: ADAOZ
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Great article.
Thanks! If you have any suggestions you can do so via Discord
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And thank you for the feedback.