A Beginner’s Guide to Cardano

By Rishma Banerjee

Cardano currently is being hailed by experts as one of the most important cryptocurrencies in the market, but that is not just what it is. It is also a decentralized public blockchain platform, which is working on the development of a blockchain smart contract platform. When all these three services are completed and consolidated, Cardano will be more advanced than any other protocol that has ever been developed.

As of now, three organizations are collaborating to create Cardano. The Cardano Foundation Based in Switzerland provides support to Cardano users and also deals with regulatory and commercial authorities. IOHK, or Input Output Hong Kong, is the blockchain engineering company focused mainly on building the actual project, and Emurgo, is the blockchain project incubator that takes care of much of the funding.

Why is Cardano Unique?

Cardano, the first blockchain-based platform to emerge out of a research-driven approach. Though you may have questions about white papers, what and how to write it, Cardano rejects it to use a set of academic papers. The team behind Cardano is working to make sure that the technology they design is flexible, scalable and secure so that millions of users can be able to use it. Cardano is supposed to introduce a new form of regulated computing that will ensure security, by allowing improved financial inclusion via its open access.
Cardano offers the cryptocurrency Ada, along with it’s blockchain platform which is being created in a series of layers in order to prevent any problems during future updates. The first layer in the project is the settlement layer which will enable Ada to function. Ada can be used to send and receive digital funds. But investors must use the Daedalus wallet, a hierarchical deterministic, multiplatform, secure wallet that has been designed specifically for this cryptocurrency. It is simple to use and allows users to view every detail related to transactions as well specific information regarding the blockchain. It has added security due to its encrypted spending passwords and private keys.

After this comes the computer later that will be able to handle smart contracts. Along with this, Cardano will also run decentralized applications (dApps).

Cardano is using a new algorithm for proof-of-stake mining, known as Ouroboros which can figure out how the various notes come to a consensus regarding btge network. It discards the need for a more energy consuming proof-of-work protocol. That system, designed by Professor Aggelos Kiayias, the IOHK chief scientist and his team consumes less energy thus guaranteeing scalability.

Cardano also has a unique Block Explorer, which allows you to check transaction histories. Transactions which are concerned with Ada are publicly recorded via the blockchain. The Cardano Testnet version of this is already active, and the real version will soon be up.

ADA, can be bought with your debit/credit cards in only one website- Coinmama. LiteBit.eu, Bithumb, Cryptomate, Bitbns are few services that allow the purchase of ADA through wire transfers. Ada is available across most well known exchanges like Binance, Huobi, Bittrex etc though the list is growing.The team also has plans to make it available across ATMs as well as introduce the use of Cardano debit cards which will enable users to use it like any form of currency.

Conclusions

Cardano this seems like a very good investment because of its carried uses and functions but check our article “Cardano Blockchain Explained” in order to get a more in depth idea about how it works.