Cardano is a smart contract platform for developing dApps similar to NEO and Ethereum. In fact, Charles Hoskinson, who is one of the co-founders of Ethereum, developed Cardano.
Three organizations are in charge of developing and maintaining the platform, and they are:
- The Cardano Foundation
- Emurgo
- IOHK
The platform is fully decentralized and uses the Haskell and Plutus programming languages.
Cardano vs Ethereum: What’s the difference?
The team takes a scientific, peer-reviewed approach that is unique in the blockchain space. This means that a network of scientists support the project and participate in its development.
Further, the two platforms use different consensus mechanisms. Ethereum uses a consensus mechanism called “Proof of Work”, which is the same model that bitcoin uses. On the other side, Cardano uses a variation of ‘Proof of Stake’, which it calls “Ouroboros”.
Also, one of the main differences between these two platforms is in their architecture. Cardano consists of two layers: the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) and the Cardano Computation Layer (CCL). In contrast, Ethereum has one layer at the moment.
What problems does Cardano solve?
According to its website, Cardano tries to solve scalability, interoperability, and sustainability problems on current blockchain platforms. Basically, that means that the platform aims to speed up the transactions and lowers high fees.
To make its network more scalable, the platform adopted RINA (Recursive Internetworked Architecture). Moreover, the platform wants to enable cross-chain transfers through side chains and to improve data scaling.
When it comes to sustainability, Cardano intends to pay for its future development and growth by creating a treasury. How? With the help of block rewards. Every time a block gets included to the chain, one part of the block reward gets added to the treasury.
ADA – Cardano’s native token
ADA coin is the main fuel for Cardano, and according to the team, there’ll be a maximum of 45 billion ADA coins. To use ADA you’ll have to download the Daedalus digital wallet, which you can do on the company’s website.
The team raised funds through an ICO, which lasted from January 2015 to January 2017. They managed to raise approximately $62 million.
Conclusion
Cardano is a unique project in the blockchain world since it uses a scientifically backed approach. The platform has several advantages over blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and NEO, and its goal is to provide a more balanced ecosystem.
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