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Cardano (ADA) is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that’s designed to be flexible, sustainable, and scalable. It supports smart contracts, allowing for the creation of decentralized applications (dApps), tokens, and more on its network.
The Cardano network aims to be the most environmentally sustainable blockchain platform through the use of its Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism called Ouroboros, which allows ADA token holders to help validate transactions by “delegating” their tokens to staking pools run by validators.
The blockchain is divided into the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL), which contains the accounts and balances and is where the Ouruboros consensus mechanism validates transactions, and the Cardano Computing Layer (CCL), which is where the computations for decentralized applications built on top of Cardano are run.
The Cardano network was launched in September 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, without support for smart contracts. These were rolled out later on through the Alonzo hard fork.
The network was launched using a consensus mechanism, Ouroboros, that’s based on peer-reviewed research by a team of cryptographers from several institutions, including the University of Edinburgh and Tokyo University.
Cardano is now maintained by three separate organizations and by its community. The organizations behind Cardano include the Cardano Foundation, which is a non-profit organization supervising the network’s development, Input Output Global, and Emurgo, which encourages Cardano adoption.
The network is developed through a series of eras named after notable figures. The network’s current era, Basho, focuses on scalability and network optimization, while its final era Voltaire will bring voting and treasury management to the blockchain.
ADA is the native token of the Cardano blockchain, akin to ETH on the Ethereum network. It’s used to pay for transaction fees on the network and can be used for governance or to earn rewards by participating in the network’s Proof-of-Stake consensus.
ADA is named after Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, who is often referred to as the first computer programmer.
Cardano’s Voltaire era will bring voting and treasury management to the network, which will allow ADA token holders to vote on the project’s future direction, in a way similar to the one owners of decentralized autonomous organizations’ (DAOs) governance tokens vote on proposals.
Blockchain data provided by: Blockchair
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