The Relevance of Cardano in Cryptocurrency Market and Its Future Prospects

It has been nearly a decade since the first cryptocurrency Bitcoin made its mark in the global economy and offered an ingenious decentralized payment system that can be operated from any part of the world. Within this period of time, several other cryptocurrencies, collectively known as Altcoins, have managed to make their way in the enormous cryptocurrency market as well. The most popular cryptocurrencies among these Altcoins would include Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, etc.

Although Cardano is relatively new in the crypto world, it has made a considerable impact on the market since its initial release on 29^th September 2017. Through its technologically advanced trading platform and ADA cryptocurrency, Cardano seems to become increasingly popular within a very short period of time. Still, there are cryptocurrency investors who are not entirely au fait with this cryptocurrency. In this article, a few aspects of Cardano will be discussed.

An Introduction to Cardano:

To crypto-connoisseurs, the term Cardano refers to a smart contract platform, quite similar to Ethereum, which runs the ADA cryptocurrency while focussing on general security through its innovative layered architecture. The initial development of Cardano began in 2015. The coin was sold as an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2016 and was eventually able to raise a considerable amount of money. It finally came as a legitimate cryptocurrency in September of the previous year.

Charles Hoskinson, the former CEO of Ethereum project, developed this platform keeping both regulations and end-user in mind. The principal objective of this development was to find a way to balance the decentralization and privacy principles with the regulatory requirements. The focus was also on building a more developed smart contract platform with a new set of highly innovative features.

The code used for developing Cardano is Haskell that endeavors to provide a research-driven approach based on scientific philosophy. The Haskell code is mainly known for its degree of fault tolerance. As the technology of blockchain is itself very complex as well as unforeseeable, a programming language like Haskell not only limits the margin of error but also strengthens the architecture of this technology platform.

The ADA Cryptocurrency:   

ADA is the default cryptocurrency of Cardano that is known for its ability to offer a fast as well as cryptographically secure transaction. This coin was developed in order to make conspicuous improvements over Bitcoin. It exhibits several unique features including consumption of less computational power.

Figure 2: The ADA Coin Symbol

ADA cryptocurrency is an open-source digital currency that can be mined using Epochs. These Epochs are capable of designing blocks and chains simultaneously. As a result, the transaction speed using ADA coin is considerably higher than that of Bitcoin, which follows a one block at a time process.

The Working Procedure of Cardano Platform:

The technological platform of Cardano is capable of maneuvering all financial applications used by people, business as well as governmental organizations, and various other institutions spread across the globe on a daily basis. The network used by this platform is known as RENA (Recursive InterNetwork Architecture). The architecture of RENA network is quite similar to that of TCP/IP and it allows a huge scalability. As a result, the Cardano platform is capable of conducting more than 10,000 transactions per second. Also, Cardano platform is devoid of any problem related to data circulation with peer to peer division.

The entire system of this cryptocurrency platform can be divided into two layers. These layers are:

Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL): It is the very first layer of this platform and acts as a balance ledger. CSL is basically proof-of-stake consensus algorithm that would confirm the transactions made using ADA coin and would subsequently generate new blocks. CSL was built as an improved version of Bitcoin and according to its whitepaper, it is about to undergo more upgrades and developments in the coming years. The whitepaper of CSL talks about implementation of several new features including an increased scalability, sidechains for linking other ledgers, two sets of scripting languages, and many more.

Cardano Computation Layer (CCL): This layer holds the information about why a transaction takes place in the first place. The CCL is completely detached from CSL and as a result, different users of CCL can create different sets of rules while evaluating a transaction. The skillful development team of Cardano is about to develop a new programming language Plutus, to implement smart contracts in this layer.

Besides these two layers, Cardano platform also consists of a KMZ Sidechain Protocol that allows funds to get transferred securely from CSL to CCL.

Trading with ADA Cryptocurrency:

ADA coin can be securely traded with the help of an efficient multi-platform wallet known as Daedalus. This wallet was developed by the Cardano enterprise and comes with several advantageous features like:

• Protection against malware with the use of encrypted private keys
• Inbuilt ADA Redemption
• Transaction assurance level monitoring

Figure 3: The Symbol of Daedalus Wallet

The ADA cryptocurrency of Cardano follows an innovative proof-of-stake algorithm known as Ouroboros that helps Cardano to reach consensus on the state of the ledger. Because of this algorithm, anyone holding this particular cryptocurrency can become a slot leader.

ADA Exchanges:

ADA coin can be traded for other cryptocurrencies as well as fiat currencies in many exchanges. However, the list of most popular ADA exchanges would include Binance, Bittrex, and HitBTC. Besides them, ADA can be also traded on Coinnest, Gate.io, and Abucoins exchange.

The Current ADA Market Cap and Its Future:

Cardano currently holds the seventh position in terms of total market capitalization on Coinmarketcap with a commendable figure of nearly 9 billion USD (as per the data of 28^th Feb 2018). The value of an individual ADA coin is equivalent to $0.319401.

Figure 4: The ADA Chart on 28th Feb 2018

Despite the fact that Cardano came into the market in September of 2017, the ADA coin has made a significant impact on the market within a time period of five months. Judging by this trend, it can be speculated that Cardano will continue to make inroads in the cryptocurrency market by providing new advanced features to its users.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of Cardano