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About Cardano
Key Points:
- Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform aiming to redistribute power to individuals.
- Founded in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, also a co-founder of Ethereum.
- Native ADA token allows owners to participate in the operation of the network.
- Alonzo hard fork launched in September 2021, bringing smart contract functionality to the blockchain.
- Cardano is used in various use cases, including tracking fresh produce and storing educational credentials.
- Charles Hoskinson is a mathematician and technology entrepreneur who got involved in cryptocurrencies in 2011.
- Cardano is one of the biggest blockchains to use a proof-of
Introducing Cardano: A Pioneering Blockchain Ecosystem
Introducing Cardano (ADA): A Pioneering Cryptocurrency
Cardano is a pioneering proof-of-stake blockchain platform that aspires to empower “changemakers, innovators, and visionaries” to drive transformative positive change on a global scale.
Delve deeper into the intricacies of this project by exploring our comprehensive analysis of Cardano.
The open-source project also strives to “rebalance the scales of power, shifting it from unaccountable entities to the periphery, where individuals can reclaim their agency” — thereby fostering a society that is more secure, transparent, and equitable.
Founded in 2017, Cardano pays homage to the 16th-century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano, while its native ADA token is named after Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer. The ADA token is designed to empower its owners to participate in the network’s operation, granting them the right to vote on proposed software changes.
The visionary team behind the innovative layered blockchain asserts that their technology has already spawned several compelling use cases, ultimately enabling the development of decentralized applications and smart contracts with unparalleled modularity.
In August 2021, Charles Hoskinson’s announcement of the Alonzo hard fork triggered a remarkable surge in Cardano’s price, which skyrocketed by 116% in the subsequent month. On September 12, 2021, the highly anticipated Cardano ‘Alonzo’ hard fork officially went live, successfully integrating smart contract functionality into the blockchain. In the 24 hours that followed, a staggering number of over 100 smart contracts were deployed, marking a significant milestone in the platform’s evolution.
Cardano is leveraged by agricultural companies to meticulously track fresh produce throughout its entire journey, from cultivation to consumption. Moreover, various applications built on the platform enable the secure storage of educational credentials in a tamper-evident manner, while also empowering retailers to effectively combat counterfeit goods.
The Visionaries Behind Cardano: Meet the Founders
Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, a visionary entrepreneur who also played a pivotal role in the creation of the Ethereum network. As the CEO of IOHK, the innovative company behind Cardano’s blockchain, Hoskinson has been instrumental in shaping the platform’s development.
In a recent interview for CoinMarketCap’s esteemed Crypto Titans series, Charles Hoskinson recounted his journey into the realm of cryptocurrencies, which began as early as 2011, when he dabbled in mining and trading. He revealed that his first foray into the industry occurred in 2013, when he created a comprehensive course on Bitcoin, which garnered an impressive 80,000 students.
Besides being a visionary technology entrepreneur, Hoskinson is also a mathematician of note. Notably, in 2020, his technology company made a generous donation of ADA valued at $500,000 to the University of Wyoming’s Blockchain Research and Development Lab, further solidifying his commitment to the advancement of blockchain technology.
Unveiling the Uniqueness of Cardano
Cardano stands out as one of the pioneering blockchains to have successfully implemented a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, a more energy-efficient approach compared to the energy-intensive proof-of-work algorithm employed by Bitcoin. Notably, even the behemoth Ethereum is slated to transition to PoS, albeit in a gradual manner.
The project takes pride in subjecting all technological developments to a rigorous process of peer-reviewed research, thereby allowing bold ideas to be thoroughly scrutinized and validated. As emphasized by the Cardano team, this unwavering commitment to academic rigor serves to fortify the blockchain, rendering it more durable and stable, and thereby increasing the likelihood of anticipating and mitigating potential pitfalls in advance.
In 2020, Cardano embarked on a pivotal Shelley upgrade, designed to catapult its blockchain to unprecedented heights of decentralization, boasting a 50 to 100-fold increase in comparison to other prominent blockchain networks. At the time, Hoskinson foresaw this development as a precursor to a proliferation of hundreds of assets being hosted on its network.
The highly anticipated Alonzo hard fork, slated for September 2021, marks the culmination of the Shelley era and the dawn of the Goguen phase. This pivotal milestone will empower users to design and deploy smart contracts on Cardano, thereby enabling the creation of native decentralized applications (DApps) directly on the blockchain. Notably, the Cardano price surged past the $3 threshold, reaching an all-time high of $3.101 on September 2, 2021, ahead of the launch.
Unveiling Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork: A New Era of Scalability and Efficiency
Named in honor of the late Bulgarian mathematician Vasil Dabov, a distinguished contributor to Cardano, the Vasil hard fork is hailed as one of the most eagerly awaited upgrades for Cardano. This hard fork, marking the third development epoch of Cardano, is poised to introduce a plethora of upgrades to the blockchain’s smart contract programming language, Plutus, as well as significantly enhance the network’s capacity.
The inaugural event, initially slated for June 2022, has undergone multiple postponements.
Vasil will unveil five pivotal mechanisms designed to significantly enhance Cardano’s scalability and usability, namely CIP-31, CIP-32, CIP-33, CIP-40, and diffusion pipelining.
CIP-31, also known as “reference inputs,” is poised to introduce a novel type of input that enables developers to access the result of an output without necessitating its expenditure. This innovation is expected to significantly optimize transaction throughput and boost concurrency.
The CIP-32 proposal seeks to introduce inline datums, thereby revolutionizing the current paradigm of attaching datums to datum hashes. By allowing developers to attach datums directly to outputs, this update enables the creation of scripts that reference inputs explicitly, thereby facilitating more efficient and streamlined communication of datum values between users.
The Cardano Improvement Proposal 33 proposes the attachment of reference scripts to outputs, thereby enabling these scripts to fulfill validation requirements in lieu of the spending transaction. This innovation is poised to streamline the validation process, yielding a notable reduction in transaction size.
Meanwhile, CIP-40 introduces a novel type of output in transactions, dubbed collateral outputs, specifically designed to bolster the network’s overall scalability.
Cardano’s consensus layer scaling solution, diffusing pipelining, is poised to revolutionize the deployment of decentralized applications (DApps). By overlaying certain steps in the block validation process, this innovative approach enables concurrent transactions, thereby streamlining the flow of data across the chain.
The Circulating Supply of Cardano (ADA): A Closer Look
With a capped supply of 45 billion ADA, the current circulating supply stands at approximately 31 billion. Between September 2015 and January 2017, five public sales of Cardano tokens took place. Notably, the pre-launch sale price of Cardano was a mere $0.0024, translating to an astonishing over 1000-fold return, given the current market value.
Roughly 2.5 billion ADA was allocated to IOHK upon the network’s inception.
Concurrently, an additional 2.1 billion ADA was bestowed upon Emurgo, a
globally renowned blockchain technology company that played a pivotal role
as a founding entity of the Cardano protocol. Lastly, 648 million ADA was
allotted to the not-for-profit Cardano Foundation, whose primary objective is
to promote the platform and foster increased adoption.
Notably, the founders of the project retained approximately 16% of ADA’s total supply, while the remaining 84% was allocated among investors.
The Cardano Network’s Robust Security Mechanisms
Cardano is secured through an environmentally sustainable and verifiably secure proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol, aptly dubbed Ouroboros, which ensures a robust and eco-friendly network.
The project asserts that Ouroboros enhances the security guarantees provided by a PoW consensus mechanism, all while significantly reducing energy consumption — boasting a fourfold increase in energy efficiency compared to Bitcoin.
Ouroboros is aptly described as a synergy of innovative technology and mathematically validated mechanisms, infused with the principles of behavioral psychology and economic philosophy. Ultimately, its overarching objective is to foster sustainable and ethical growth.
A pivotal incentive mechanism is implemented, whereby participants within the network are duly rewarded for their active involvement and valuable contributions.
Unveiling Cardano’s Alonzo Upgrade: A New Era of Smart Contract Capabilities
On September 12, Cardano unveiled its highly anticipated Alonzo upgrade, thereby empowering its blockchain network to accommodate a diverse array of crypto applications, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and smart contracts.
According to the project’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, Alonzo seeks to imbue the network with “programmability”. He drew a parallel between this upgrade and the transformative impact of JavaScript on web browsers, which paved the way for the evolution from static web pages to dynamic platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
Alonzo is named in honor of Alonzo Church, a renowned American mathematician and one of the pioneering figures in the development of computer science.
Beyond facilitating NFTs and smart contracts, Cardano has now evolved to accommodate decentralized exchanges, further expanding its capabilities.
In general, Alonzo elevates Cardano to the same esteemed echelon as Ethereum, the world’s preeminent blockchain, which facilitates a multitude of applications beyond its native Ether token. Notably, smart contracts, a cornerstone of the decentralized finance sector, are now supported by Cardano.
In February 2022, a significant milestone was reached as the number of Cardano wallets surpassed three million, marking a staggering 1,200% surge since December 2020, when the figure stood at 190,000. This remarkable growth coincided with a notable increase in smart contracts, following the successful implementation of the Alonzo Upgrade, which propelled Cardano past the 1,000 smart contracts milestone on January 27, 2022.
Another telling indicator of the ecosystem’s remarkable growth is the fervent developer activity: Cardano has emerged as the undisputed leader in terms of developer contributions on Github, surpassing even more established blockchains like Solana. Notably, its repository receives an average of over 50 daily contributions, underscoring the project’s remarkable momentum.
Notwithstanding, the network continues to grapple with the implementation of its smart contracts, and users have expressed dissatisfaction with the sluggish rollout of its SundaeSwap decentralized exchange, which debuted in January 2022.
Where to Acquire Cardano (ADA): A Comprehensive Guide
As one of the largest cryptocurrencies globally in terms of market capitalization, locating a prominent exchange to purchase Cardano is relatively effortless, with notable platforms such as Binance, Bittrex, eToro, and HitBTC readily available.
If you’re encountering difficulties in finding a trading pair that pairs ADA with your local currency, consider exploring this comprehensive guide on converting fiat into Bitcoin, thereby providing a gateway to acquiring altcoins.
To obtain real-time Cardano prices in your preferred fiat currency, you can utilize CoinMarketCap’s converter tool, conveniently accessible on the Cardano currency page or the dedicated exchange rate converter page. Notable Cardano price pairs include: ADA/USD, ADA/JPY, ADA/KRW, ADA/CNY, ADA/GBP, and ADA/AUD.
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