Cardano

What is Cardano?

Cardano is the Blockchain ecosystem, a blockchain platform for managing assets such as currencies, supply chains, notarizations, and property registries, of the ADA cryptocurrency.

So Cardano is an open-source smart transaction platform. It aims to solve the current problems found in the crypto industry. 

Its scalability and security under the layered architecture give it flexibility and ease of maintenance. And, in addition, it allows updates by soft forks. 

Cardano Price

Cardano Profile

Cardano is one of the platforms that make up the third generation of blockchain. The first generation is made up of Bitcoin and the second is Ethereum. 

In addition, it is the first blockchain created based on scientific philosophy; it is the only one created by a global team made up of leading academics and engineers from the Blockchain environment.  

Cardano Basic Information

Cardano Structure

Cardano comprises two layers.

CSL, first layer

This layer functions as a ledger for the balance sheet. It is created based on Bitcoin but with some improvements, using the Ouroboros algorithm, where its cryptocurrency was born, which uses PoS consensus to generate new blocks and confirm transactions. 

CCL, back cover

This layer contains all the information about the transactions carried out within the platform. Thanks to the division of layers, users using CCL can generate different rules against which transactions can be evaluated. 

A new language is being developed to develop Smart Contracts within this layer, Plutus. The Solidity language, always used by Ethereum, is also supported. 

KMZ sidechains

The support of sidechains under the protocol of Kiayias, Miller, and Zidros are part of Cardano. This protocol allows funds to be safely moved from the CSL to any CCL or any other external blockchain that uses the same protocol. 

How does Cardano (ADA) work?

Bitcoin and Ethereum use Proof of Work (PoW) as a consensus algorithm, which means miners have to solve cryptographic problems to complete blocks. One of the biggest drawbacks is the price of the hardware resources to mine, and it consumes a very large amount of energy. Faced with climate change, most of the cryptocurrencies that use PoW are environmentally unsustainable.

With PoS, an algorithm used by Cardano, instead of using electricity to solve problems, a node is selected to form a new block with a probability proportional to the number of tokens held in the node. This algorithm proved to be more energy-efficient and allows for faster transactions. 

Founders of Cardano

The initial idea of ​​founding Cardano belongs to Charles Hoskinson, one of the programmers who participated in the development of Ethereum but who left the project. Charles assembled a strong team of professionals that enabled the creation of Cardano. 

But behind the platform, there are three companies that work together to develop and promote this project. 

IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong): this company was founded by Charles Hoskins and Jeremy Wood, another famous programmer, in 2014. This company is in charge of developing and improving technology, creating a wallet, and making changes within Cardano. But, besides Cardano, they support other projects like Ethereum Classic. 

The Cardano Foundation is a non-profit organization whose objectives are:

• Public relations and popularization of the crypto currency ADA.
• Inform about development, upcoming innovations and changes
• Monitoring of compliance with the plan described in the roadmap by the Cardano team
• Influence government and regulatory bodies
• Strategic alliances with companies interested in implementing blockchain technologies in their products.

Emurgo is a Japanese venture capital company which helps companies integrate the cryptocurrency protocol into their business processes. In the future, the company plans to support the development of companies that will develop their decentralized applications based on Cardano block acids. 

How does Cardano stand out?

The use of the Ouroboros algorithm, which implements the Cardano platform, is the key to the infrastructure and an innovation in Blockchain technology. In addition, it is what makes the ADA cryptocurrency possible. Ouroboros allows you not to need Proof of work hungry for energy, removing the impossibility of expanding the Blockchain. 

The level of security it has is comparable to that of Bitcoin; it was never interrupted.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of Cardano:

• It is the only currency that uses a mathematically proven security protocol and a Haskell programming language that allows the code to also be mathematically correct and free from possible human errors.
• Greater scalability thanks to the use of a two-tier blockchain.
• It is planned to use quantum digital signatures; this would keep Cardano out of harm’s way from quantum computers.
• The established roadmap is followed to the letter and progress reports are published. 
• The project is backed by a strong team of three large companies and scientists. 

Disadvantages of Cardano: 

• Presence of serious competitors against Ethereum and NEO.
• I don’t know if it is actually already available 
• The consensus protocol and platform to launch smart contracts are still under development. At the moment, decentralized applications cannot be developed on the Cardano blockchain, which in turn is a very good opportunity for competitors to gain an important place in the ecosystem.