What Is Cardano (ADA)?
Also known as: ADA
In short
Cardano is an open-source, smart-contract-enabled blockchain platform that runs on Ouroboros, a Proof of Stake mechanism based on peer-reviewed academic research. Its native cryptocurrency, ADA, is used for transaction fees and staking.
Cardano was developed under the leadership of Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum, and its mainnet went live in 2017. Development is carried out by Input Output (IOG), the Cardano Foundation and EMURGO. The project is known for its approach of designing protocol changes through scientific publications before putting them into practice. The network is named after the mathematician Gerolamo Cardano and ADA after Ada Lovelace; the smallest unit of ADA is called a lovelace.
Cardano uses the EUTXO (extended unspent transaction output) accounting model, which extends Bitcoin's UTXO model. Smart contract support arrived with the Alonzo update in 2021, making it possible to write contracts in Plutus, a Haskell-based language. ADA holders can contribute to block production and earn rewards by delegating their assets to a stake pool without locking them up.
Protocol changes are proposed through the CIP (Cardano Improvement Proposal) process; the on-chain governance model defined by CIP-1694 was also brought to life through this process. Although the EUTXO model has advantages for parallel processing, the fact that it expects developers to take a different programming approach is often raised in debates about the pace of the ecosystem's growth.
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