The world of cryptocurrencies is innovative, is surpassed every day by the next digital currency that is born and the existing ones are modified to make their blockchain more efficient, faster, and secure. In this context, Cardano stands out as one of the most prominent projects in the current landscape of the crypto ecosystem.
This network It was originally conceived as a payment platform that was intended to be simpler, faster, and cheaper than Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, it has achieved much more and has rapidly evolved to position itself as a strong competitor to Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin.
BUY BITCOINThis project is particularly interesting not only for its focus on development, but also for the principles that underpin it. These are academic research peer-reviewed and audited, sustainability from the point of view of energy efficiency, the scalability of its token as an asset and interoperability within the entire blockchain system. All this undoubtedly makes the cardano price and its native cryptocurrency ADA offer promising prospects for its future.
Cardano, his birth and his goal
Cardano is considered third-generation blockchain platform because it has overcome the problems of slowness, transaction costs and energy consumption of its predecessors. This network was founded in 2015 by Charls Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum.
The project and Its development is supported by three organizations of renown and authority: IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), a software development company owned by Hoskinson, Cardano Foundation, a non-profit institution that seeks constant improvements for this network and Emurgo, a company that is responsible for finding solutions and advising on blockchain projects.
The main objective of Cardano, with which it was born and where it has been directed, is to offer a more secure, scalable and sustainable infrastructure compared to other blockchains.
GO TO BIT2ME LIFEThe Cardano network was officially launched in 2017. with its native cryptocurrency, ADA, which takes its name not from the network itself like others, but is It is named after Ada Lovelace, a 19th-century mathematician. and considered the first programmer in history for having developed the first code for an analytical machine that could process complex mathematical operations.
Cardano, moreover, aims to be an ecological cryptocurrency so it operates with a consensus protocol called Ouroboros, which is a much more energy-efficient Proof of Stake system than the Proof of Work systems used by Bitcoin.
Likewise, The platform is divided into two main layers: the first is that of settlement, which handles transactions made with ADA and the second is the one computing, which allows the execution of automatic smart contracts and decentralized applications or dApps.
What is the secret that Cardano keeps?
Without a doubt, Cardano's secret to being a blockchain that has been able to overcome the problems of its predecessors is in research and innovationThese are some of its most notable features:
Ouroboros and its progress in PoS
When we talk about how a cryptocurrency works one cannot fail to mention its consensus protocol which is a way to validate and save each transaction carried out on that blockchain. Cardano is one step ahead because, although there are many digital assets that they use PoS, this network gives us a pleasant surprise, since its algorithm is unique and was designed specifically for this blockchain.
BUY CARDANOIt is about Ouroboros, a name that refers to the mythical creature present in various mythologies like a snake or dragon biting its tail and symbolizing the eternal cycle of things that begin and end and then repeat the pattern.
Ouroboros is a PoS consensus protocol. However, this implements a very different formula in its operation from Cardano. First, for the generation of information blocks within the chain This algorithm asks each user to have a certain amount of coins, That is, what represents their participation within a special node (computer or terminal) that is a validator node. Thus, the more economic participation a user has in the system, the greater the chance of generating a block and earn the reward for it.
Security and its structuring
Ouroboros not only enables consensus on the Cardano blockchain, it also implements a temporary and random assignment mechanism which allows validator nodes on a hardware terminal to securely participate in the system.
This is a very technical reason, but basically, el mechanism is organized in two temporal levels within the chain and in each transaction: the epochs or cycles and the slots or intervals between operations.
Epochs last 5 days and a slot lasts 1 second.. Consequently, each epoch contains a total of 432.000 slots, each of which generates between 21.400 and 21.600 blocks. This is only possible because a block is created every 20 seconds on Cardano.
Why is this time segmentation in the Ouroboros protocol so important? to security? The reason is that, being structured in two layers, makes it difficult for an attacker to manipulate the network participation results. That is, in a hypothetical situation in which a stake pool (validator group) With a large number of ADA tokens that would like to try to use their resources to obtain the allocation to generate blocks and thus earn rewards, encountering Ouroboros eliminates this attempt, which is one of the biggest challenges of PoS consensus.
In other words, Cardano's algorithm prevents centralization of block generation power and manages to limit the advantage that stake pools with larger amounts of ADA could have, thus balancing the chances of being selected as validators on the network.
Your smart contracts
One of the most notable new features of Cardano is the incorporation into its blockchain of the ability to execute smart contracts, which it does through the Plutus platform. This feature, introduced to the public in 2021, continues to be a groundbreaking technology today. Thanks to this, This blockchain has managed to position itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum, which has been its main rival since its inception.
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On the other hand, Cardano smart contracts offer a number of notable advancements, Some are exclusive to the network and others are designed with the future of the network in mind. In particular, they are designed and developed using the Haskell programming language.
It is a programming protocol known as facilitate the writing of instructions, offer built-in security for the data compiler, have robust static typing, and be highly versatile. The latter allows you to adapt effectively to different areas, from advanced programming to web development.
