Cardano

Cardano is a public blockchain and smart-contract platform for change-makers, innovators and visionaries with the tools and technologies required to bring about positive global change.

After leaving Ethereum in 2014 Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood set out their plans for Cardano the following year. Hoskinson had left Ethereum after a dispute with co-founder Vitalik Buterin. He wanted to accept venture capital and create a company while Buterin wanted to keep Ethereum a nonprofit organization with an open-source decentralized governance. 

Shortly Jeremy Woods was approached by former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood to form a new project titled IOHK- an engineering firm that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains for corporations- government entities- and academic institutions. There was no looking back. IOHK saw huge returns as the coin soared in value. "When the crypto market exploded, we decided to liquidate," Hoskinson told Forbes. "Relative to our burn rate though IOHK can now stay open for decades."

IOHK's key project is Cardano- initially released to the public in 2017. A public blockchain and smart-contract platform which hosts the Ada cryptocurrency estimated at $16 billion and the fifth-largest in market cap- just two spots behind Ethereum. Cardano reportedly reached a market cap of $77 billion in May 2021 which was the fourth highest for a cryptocurrency at that time.

Cardano is controlled by three entities: 1. The Cardano Foundation is an independent Swiss-based not-for-profit organization which supervises the development of Cardano and its ecosystem. 2. IOHK is a technology and engineering company that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains for academic institutions, enterprise and government entities. 3. Emurgo develops- supports- and incubates commercial opportunities and helps integrate businesses into Cardano's blockchain system.

Cardano uses design principles intended to overcome issues such as scalability- interoperability- and regulatory compliance. Like Bitcoin.. it uses a UTXO ledger model though it is an extended version to facilitate smart contracts and scripting languages. Cardano uses a proof-of-stake protocol named Ouroboros which uses far less energy than proof-of-work chains. This is achieved by eliminating the computing resources that a proof of work algorithm requires.

Within the Cardano platform- Ada- the native token of Cardano  exists on the settlement layer and keeps track of transactions. Ada <named after Ada Lovelace: a 19th-century mathematician who is recognized as the first computer programmer and is the daughter of the poet Lord Byron> can be stored on Cardano's native digital wallet "Daedalus" which downloads a copy of the Cardano blockchain transaction history. The second layer is the computation which enables smart contracts and applications to run on the platform. 

As with other proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies Cardano offers "staking" which allows token holders to set aside tokens to  "validate" transactions on the blockchain. Cardano's Daedalus wallet allows for staking. For Cardano.. users participate in "staking pools" with other token-holders.

Cardano is built by a decentralized community of scientists, engineers, and thought leaders. The team is unified by a common vision: to create a technology platform that will ignite positive change. They believe that the future should not be defined by the past and that more is possible through technology. A future that serves the many as well as the few- and which empowers individuals, societies and businesses to create new ways of transacting, interacting, creating and governing.