It’s still the biggest rival to Solana, but the Cardano Foundation and Hoskinson are trying to prove they can co-exist and are focusing on other domains, rather then trying to take part in the crypto gambling and shitcoin minting like solana. Solana is also currently in a rapid decline (number of validator nodes is dropping and is nearing a critical treshold, and it’s not as nearly decentralized as cardano). Cardano with Hydra should be able to reach over 1M tps, it’s the most resillient 3rd gen chain and has a good community sentiment, also there is a large amount of long term hodlers still to this day. The biggest issue is the fact the founders were too busy with making the tech, they didn’t market it properly and didn’t tap into many areas of the domain currently dominated by ethereum or solana. But crypto and blockchain is growing.

it’s a bad asset with no future and you’ve been duped by marketing

If you want an honest take, the frustration you’re feeling is shared by a lot of long term ADA holders. Cardano has never really had a problem with ideas or technical ambition. Its problem has always been translating that into sustained demand that shows up in price.

Since 2017, ADA has repeatedly benefited from narrative driven pumps rather than organic usage pulling value through the system. The run to three dollars was fueled by expectations of what Cardano might become, not by a level of on chain activity that justified a permanently higher valuation. After that, the market slowly recalibrated once it became clear that development progress and real adoption were moving at very different speeds.