
Cardano
- #PoS
- #Smart Contract Platform
- #Binance BUSD
Cardano is a decentralised platform that will allow complex programmable transfers of value in a secure and scalable fashion. It is one of the first blockchains to be built in the highly secure Haskell programming language. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach. The development team consists of a large global collective of expert engineers and researchers.
The Cardano project is different from other blockchain projects as it openly addresses the need for regulatory oversight whilst maintaining consumer privacy and protections through an innovative software architecture. The protocol features a layered blockchain software stack that is flexible, scalable, and is being developed with the most rigorous academic and commercial software standards in the industry.
Cardano will use a democratic governance system that allows the project to evolve over time, and fund itself sustainably through a visionary treasury system.
Technological Innovation
Cardano is the first protocol to incorporate Ouroboros, the ground breaking proof of stake algorithm. The IOHK team employed a “first-principles” approach, driven by peer-reviewed academic research to build Cardano from the ground up.
The result of this collaborative effort is the first cryptocurrency to be based in Haskell code, which focuses on industrial strength product that delivers the resilience necessary for mission-critical systems, in this case, securing investment.
Cardano’s multi-layer protocol performs advanced functions, and has a settlement layer that is elegantly linked to a control layer. The settlement layer will have a unit of account, while the control layer will run smart contracts and will be programmed to recognize identity, assisting compliance (and allowing blacklisting, for instance).
The protocol is geared towards protecting privacy rights of users, while also taking into account the needs of regulators. In doing so, Cardano is the first protocol to balance these requirements in a nuanced and effective way, pioneering a new approach for cryptocurrencies.
The system is also designed to allow upgrade through soft forks, enabling it to adapt to changing needs and evolve quickly, when required. A treasury system is also being installed that will ensure the sustainability of the protocol.
Cardano is built in the spirit of collaboration by being completely open source and patent-free. Engineered for efficiency and scalability, the Cardano ecosystem will develop into the most complete cryptocurrency ever constructed.
Conceptual Innovation
i. Privacy and regulation
The original Bitcoin blockchain was meant to be a way for individuals to transact directly and anonymously with each other outside the control of banks and governments. This guarantees privacy in financial dealings, a fundamental individual right, but full anonymity can be counterproductive. Today most blockchain projects look to further either the aims of privacy or of regulation. To be effective globally, we think our blockchain must ‘square the circle’ by finding the right mix of individual privacy protection and provision for regulatory control.
ii. Governance
Public, decentralized blockchain projects rely on crowd-based governance models. This allows for democratic control of the network by its participants, which is essential to building truly decentralised economies. However, if they are not carefully designed, such governance can go awry. Both the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities have experienced devastating schisms on the question of how to upgrade their networks – in Ethereum's case already causing a split. The Cardano blockchain has an airtight governance model that allow the community to democratically take clear and binding decisions.
iii. Funding
The Cardano blockchain has sophisticated maintenance and development needs and is able to adequately fund itself, both in terms of running costs and new investment.
The Token: ADA Voucher
Every blockchain project has a token of value commonly referred to as a cryptocurrency. Ada is the cryptocurrency on the Cardano blockchain. With Ada, holders can send value between friends, pay for a good or service, deposit funds on an exchange, or enter an application. To perform a transfer on the settlement layer requires you own Ada, or acquire Ada through an exchange. It will also be the native token to be used in applications built on the computation layer.
The Wallet: Daedalus
Each cryptocurrency requires a “wallet” to store Ada. Typically this wallet is a software application that can be installed on any computer or smartphone. Daedalus is a highly-engineered wallet with advanced security features that was developed by IOHK specifically for the Cardano blockchain and protects your assets with the most advanced cryptography. In the future, Daedalus will not only support Ada, but other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic and many more.
The Cardano Foundation
The Cardano Foundation’s core mission is to standardise, protect and promote the Cardano Protocol technology. The Cardano Foundation acts as a supervisory and educational body for Cardano. Our mission is to:
1. Standardise, protect and promote the Cardano Protocol and its applications
2. Be a community hub offering authoritative, timely information about the technology and Cardano’s wide-ranging potential
3. Liaise and influence government and regulatory bodies, form strategic partnerships with businesses, enterprises and other open source projects and aid the creation of formal software standards for Cardano, a crucial feature for its long term success and critical in adoption and government engagement
Areas of Focus:
1. Cardano Protocol - We function as an objective standards body for the Cardano protocol as it evolves over time.
2. Cardano community - We support, grow and help educate the Cardano blockchain community.
3. Cardano ecosystem - We work to expand and protect the Cardano ecosystem. This includes promoting Cardano as a platform for commercial entities and serving as an objective organization for enterprises interested in joining Cardano.
4. Serving the wider blockchain community - We aim to influence and progress the emerging commercial and legislative landscape for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in general. We proactively approach government and regulatory bodies and form strategic partnerships with businesses, enterprises and other open-source projects.
IOHK
Founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, IOHK is a world-class engineering and technology company committed to using peer-to-peer innovations to provide financial services to three billion people that don’t have them. The group is contracted to design, build, and maintain Cardano through to 2020.
Emurgo
Emurgo is the venture building entity in the Cardano ecosystem, its goal is to aid, integrate, and foster Cardano blockchain applications.
Emurgo captures the transformative power that blockchain technology brings to the developing world. Decentralized applications built on Cardano technology, funded and supported by Emurgo, will have the potential to build groundbreaking applications.
Project Road Map
IOHK has now released the settlement layer. This means you can transact, trade, and purchase Ada tokens fully independently of the computation layer. The goal for the computation layer is to have a beta released by the first quarter of 2018. Once both settlement and computation layers are live, users will be able to setup a custom environment to build decentralised applications on the Cardano stack.
In 2019, IOHK intends to work on Cardano’s long-term scalability and augment its capabilities. As developers, IOHK has been contracted through 2020 to make sure Cardano is being adequately maintained. The goal is to create a sustainable ecosystem that is capable of funding and supporting itself.
- 0.37583
- $238.19M
- $13.17BRank #8
- 35.05B
Long/Short Ratio 1.44
Bullish whale
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Cryptocurrency Calendar
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- $13.17B
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- 2017-07-08
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Intro
Cardano is a decentralised platform that will allow complex programmable transfers of value in a secure and scalable fashion. It is one of the first blockchains to be built in the highly secure Haskell programming language. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach. The development team consists of a large global collective of expert engineers and researchers.
The Cardano project is different from other blockchain projects as it openly addresses the need for regulatory oversight whilst maintaining consumer privacy and protections through an innovative software architecture. The protocol features a layered blockchain software stack that is flexible, scalable, and is being developed with the most rigorous academic and commercial software standards in the industry.
Cardano will use a democratic governance system that allows the project to evolve over time, and fund itself sustainably through a visionary treasury system.
Technological Innovation
Cardano is the first protocol to incorporate Ouroboros, the ground breaking proof of stake algorithm. The IOHK team employed a “first-principles” approach, driven by peer-reviewed academic research to build Cardano from the ground up.
The result of this collaborative effort is the first cryptocurrency to be based in Haskell code, which focuses on industrial strength product that delivers the resilience necessary for mission-critical systems, in this case, securing investment.
Cardano’s multi-layer protocol performs advanced functions, and has a settlement layer that is elegantly linked to a control layer. The settlement layer will have a unit of account, while the control layer will run smart contracts and will be programmed to recognize identity, assisting compliance (and allowing blacklisting, for instance).
The protocol is geared towards protecting privacy rights of users, while also taking into account the needs of regulators. In doing so, Cardano is the first protocol to balance these requirements in a nuanced and effective way, pioneering a new approach for cryptocurrencies.
The system is also designed to allow upgrade through soft forks, enabling it to adapt to changing needs and evolve quickly, when required. A treasury system is also being installed that will ensure the sustainability of the protocol.
Cardano is built in the spirit of collaboration by being completely open source and patent-free. Engineered for efficiency and scalability, the Cardano ecosystem will develop into the most complete cryptocurrency ever constructed.
Conceptual Innovation
i. Privacy and regulation
The original Bitcoin blockchain was meant to be a way for individuals to transact directly and anonymously with each other outside the control of banks and governments. This guarantees privacy in financial dealings, a fundamental individual right, but full anonymity can be counterproductive. Today most blockchain projects look to further either the aims of privacy or of regulation. To be effective globally, we think our blockchain must ‘square the circle’ by finding the right mix of individual privacy protection and provision for regulatory control.
ii. Governance
Public, decentralized blockchain projects rely on crowd-based governance models. This allows for democratic control of the network by its participants, which is essential to building truly decentralised economies. However, if they are not carefully designed, such governance can go awry. Both the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities have experienced devastating schisms on the question of how to upgrade their networks – in Ethereum's case already causing a split. The Cardano blockchain has an airtight governance model that allow the community to democratically take clear and binding decisions.
iii. Funding
The Cardano blockchain has sophisticated maintenance and development needs and is able to adequately fund itself, both in terms of running costs and new investment.
The Token: ADA Voucher
Every blockchain project has a token of value commonly referred to as a cryptocurrency. Ada is the cryptocurrency on the Cardano blockchain. With Ada, holders can send value between friends, pay for a good or service, deposit funds on an exchange, or enter an application. To perform a transfer on the settlement layer requires you own Ada, or acquire Ada through an exchange. It will also be the native token to be used in applications built on the computation layer.
The Wallet: Daedalus
Each cryptocurrency requires a “wallet” to store Ada. Typically this wallet is a software application that can be installed on any computer or smartphone. Daedalus is a highly-engineered wallet with advanced security features that was developed by IOHK specifically for the Cardano blockchain and protects your assets with the most advanced cryptography. In the future, Daedalus will not only support Ada, but other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic and many more.
The Cardano Foundation
The Cardano Foundation’s core mission is to standardise, protect and promote the Cardano Protocol technology. The Cardano Foundation acts as a supervisory and educational body for Cardano. Our mission is to:
1. Standardise, protect and promote the Cardano Protocol and its applications
2. Be a community hub offering authoritative, timely information about the technology and Cardano’s wide-ranging potential
3. Liaise and influence government and regulatory bodies, form strategic partnerships with businesses, enterprises and other open source projects and aid the creation of formal software standards for Cardano, a crucial feature for its long term success and critical in adoption and government engagement
Areas of Focus:
1. Cardano Protocol - We function as an objective standards body for the Cardano protocol as it evolves over time.
2. Cardano community - We support, grow and help educate the Cardano blockchain community.
3. Cardano ecosystem - We work to expand and protect the Cardano ecosystem. This includes promoting Cardano as a platform for commercial entities and serving as an objective organization for enterprises interested in joining Cardano.
4. Serving the wider blockchain community - We aim to influence and progress the emerging commercial and legislative landscape for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in general. We proactively approach government and regulatory bodies and form strategic partnerships with businesses, enterprises and other open-source projects.
IOHK
Founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, IOHK is a world-class engineering and technology company committed to using peer-to-peer innovations to provide financial services to three billion people that don’t have them. The group is contracted to design, build, and maintain Cardano through to 2020.
Emurgo
Emurgo is the venture building entity in the Cardano ecosystem, its goal is to aid, integrate, and foster Cardano blockchain applications.
Emurgo captures the transformative power that blockchain technology brings to the developing world. Decentralized applications built on Cardano technology, funded and supported by Emurgo, will have the potential to build groundbreaking applications.
Project Road Map
IOHK has now released the settlement layer. This means you can transact, trade, and purchase Ada tokens fully independently of the computation layer. The goal for the computation layer is to have a beta released by the first quarter of 2018. Once both settlement and computation layers are live, users will be able to setup a custom environment to build decentralised applications on the Cardano stack.
In 2019, IOHK intends to work on Cardano’s long-term scalability and augment its capabilities. As developers, IOHK has been contracted through 2020 to make sure Cardano is being adequately maintained. The goal is to create a sustainable ecosystem that is capable of funding and supporting itself.
Token Distribution
Crowdfunding 57%; Operational Fund 11%; Further issuance 32%;
What Is Cardano (ADA)?
Cardano is a [proof-of-stake] blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change.
To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of [Cardano].
The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent and fair.
Cardano was founded back in 2017, and named after the 16th century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano. The native ADA token takes its name from the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer. The ADA token is designed to ensure that owners can participate in the operation of the network. Because of this, those who hold the cryptocurrency have the right to vote on any proposed changes to the software.
The team behind the layered blockchain say that there have already been some compelling use cases for its technology, which aims to allow decentralized apps and smart contracts to be developed with modularity.
In August 2021, Charles Hoskinson announced the launch of the Alonzo hard fork, causing Cardano price to surge, gaining 116% in the following month. On Sept. 12, 2021, the Cardano ‘[Alonzo]’ [hard fork] officially launched, bringing [smart contract] functionality to the blockchain. Over 100 smart contracts were deployed in the following 24 hours after the launch.
Cardano is used by agricultural companies to track fresh produce from field to fork, while other products built on the platform allow educational credentials to be stored in a tamper-proof way, and retailers to clamp down on counterfeit goods.
Who Are the Founders of Cardano?
Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, who was also one of the co-founders of the Ethereum network. He is the CEO of IOHK, the company that built Cardano’s blockchain.
In an interview for[ CoinMarketCap’s Crypto Titans series], Hoskinson said that he got involved in cryptocurrencies back in 2011 — and dabbled in mining and trading. He explained that his first professional involvement in the industry came in 2013, when he created a course about Bitcoin that ended up being taken by 80,000 students.
As well as being a technology entrepreneur, Hoskinson is also a mathematician. In 2020, his technology company donated ADA worth $500,000 to the University of Wyoming’s Blockchain Research and Development Lab.
What Makes Cardano Unique?
Cardano is one of the biggest blockchains to successfully use a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is less energy intensive than the proof-of-work algorithm relied upon by Bitcoin. Although the much larger Ethereum is going to be [upgrading] to PoS, this transition is only going to take place gradually.
The project has taken pride in ensuring that all of the technology developed goes through a process of peer-reviewed research, meaning that bold ideas can be challenged before they are validated. According to the Cardano team, this academic rigor helps the blockchain to be durable and stable — increasing the chance that potential pitfalls can be anticipated in advance.
In 2020, Cardano held a Shelley upgrade that aimed to make its blockchain “50 to 100 times more decentralized” than other large blockchains. At the time, Hoskinson predicted that this would pave the way for hundreds of assets to run on its network.
The Alonzo hard fork launch in September 2021 will bring an end to the Shelley era, and usher in the Goguen phase. Users can develop and deploy smart contracts on Cardano, allowing native decentralized applications (DApps) to be built on blockchain. Cardano price broke the $3 mark and hit an all-time high of $3.101 on Sept. 2, 2021, ahead of the launch.
What Is Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork?
Named after late Bulgarian mathematician Vasil Dabov, a prominent contributor to Cardano, the Vasil hard fork is touted as one of the most highly-anticipated upgrades for Cardano. The hard fork is the third development epoch of Cardano and is supposed to introduce several upgrades to the blockchain’s smart contract programming language Plutus and the network’s capacity.
The event was originally billed to happen in June 2022, but has been postponed a number of times.
Vasil will introduce five critical mechanisms to improve Cardano’s scalability and usability — CIP-31, CIP-32, CIP-33, CIP-40 and diffusion pipelining.
CIP-31, aka “reference inputs” will introduce a new kind of input that would allow developers to look at the result of an output without having to spend it. This would optimize transaction throughput and increase concurrency.
The CIP-32 proposal aims to enable inline datums. Rather than attach datum to datum hashes, which is the current state of things, CIP-32 would allow developers to attach datums to outputs. By implementing this update, devs can code scripts that directly point to the input, making room for simpler and quicker communication of datum values between users.
The Cardano Improvement Proposal 33 would allow reference scripts to be attached to outputs. As a result, the reference scripts are used to satisfy the validation requirements in place of the spending transaction. These reference scripts will make the validation process more efficient and reduce the size of transactions.
Meanwhile, CIP-40 features a brand-new type of output to transactions called collateral outputs, aimed at improving the overall scalability of the network.
Diffusing pipelining is Cardano’s consensus layer scaling solution. The improvement proposal will see more DApp deployment by overlaying some of the steps that a block needs to go through as it moves across the chain: this would allow for concurrent transactions.
Related Pages:
[Read our interview with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson]
[A deep dive into the technology behind Ethereum 2.0]
[Brush up on complicated crypto terms with our glossary]
[A Deep Dive Into Cardano]
[Read our crypto staking guide 2021]
Want to keep track of Cardano prices live? Download the [CoinMarketCap mobile app]!
Want to convert Cardano price today to your desired fiat currency? Check out [CoinMarketCap exchange rate calculator].
How Many Cardano (ADA) Coins Are There in Circulation?
There is a maximum supply of 45 billion ADA — but at the time of writing, there was a circulating supply of about 31 billion. Five rounds of public sales of Cardano tokens were held between September 2015 and January 2017. Cardano price during its pre-launch sale was $0.0024, which represents an over 1000x return, given Cardano price now.
Approximately 2.5 billion ADA was allotted to IOHK once the network launched. Meanwhile, an additional 2.1 billion ADA was given to Emurgo, a global blockchain technology company that served as a founding entity of the Cardano protocol. Last but not least, 648 million ADA was given to the not-for-profit Cardano Foundation, which aims to promote the platform and increase levels of adoption.
Overall, about 16% of ADA’s total supply went to the project’s founders, with the remaining 84% being split among investors.
How Is the Cardano Network Secured?
Cardano is secured through an “environmentally sustainable, verifiably secure” PoS protocol that’s known as Ouroboros.
The project says that Ouroboros improves upon the security guarantees that are delivered by a PoW consensus mechanism while using substantially less power — claiming that it is four times more energy efficient than Bitcoin.
It is described as a blend of unique technology and mathematically verified mechanisms, with behavioral psychology and economic philosophy thrown in for good measure. Overall, the objective of Ouroboros is to achieve sustainable and ethical growth.
An incentive mechanism means that participants in the network are rewarded for their involvement.
What Is Cardano’s Alonzo Upgrade?
On Sept. 12, Cardano released its highly-anticipated Alonzo upgrade. Following the upgrade, the blockchain network can now support a wide range of crypto applications, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and smart contracts.
According to the project’s founder Charles Hoskinson, Alonzo aims to introduce “programmability” to the network. He likened the upgrade to when JavaScript was introduced to web browsers and the transition from static web pages to the likes of Facebook and YouTube.
Alonzo is named after American mathematician Alonzo Church, who is considered to be one of the founding fathers of computer science.
In addition to supporting NFTs and smart contracts, Cardano can now be used for decentralized exchanges.
In general, Alonzo puts Cardano in the same class as Ethereum, the world’s leading blockchain which supports other applications other than its native Ether token. Smart contracts, for instance, are one of the cornerstones of the decentralized finance sector — and Cardano now supports smart contracts.
In February 2022, the number of Cardano wallets broke the three million milestone. Since December 2020, it has surged by 1,200%, from 190,000 to over 3,000,000. This coincided with an increase in smart contracts following the Alonzo Upgrade, and Cardano surpassed the 1,000 smart contracts milestone on Jan. 27, 2022.
Another indicator of the ecosystem's explosive growth is developer activity: Cardano boasted the most developers contributing to its Github, beating out more developed blockchains like [Solana]. On average, more than 50 contributions are submitted to its repo per day.
However, the network is still struggling with implementing its [smart contracts], and users had complaints about a sluggish launch of its [SundaeSwap] decentralized exchange in January 2022.