Abbreviation: ADA
Cardano is a decentralized, open source, public blockchain. It uses the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, similar to Ethereum. This offers peer-to-peer transactions and has its own internal cryptocurrency coin.
Development of the platform started in 2015. It is headed up by Charles Hoskinson, one of the original developers of Ethereum. There is a foundation behind the project, located in Zug, Switzerland.
Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood set out their plans for Cardano in 2015, with the platform launching in 2017.
Hoskinson's departure from the leading smart contract blockchain came as a result over a differing opinion with Vitalik Buterin. The dispute was over the acceptance of venture capital money, something that Vitalik wanted to avoid. Instead, he wanted to keep the foundation non-profit.
After leaving, Hoskinson co-founded IOHK, a blockchain-engineering company, whose primary business is the development of Cardano, alongside the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo.
Cardano is similar to Bitcoin in that it has its coin, ADA, on the settlement layer. Here is where the blockchain utilizes distributed ledger technology and maintains a ledger of all transactions.
There is another layer which houses the smart contracts. This is more in line with Ethereum. It is still all part of the blockchain, technically base layer. Here is where the applications also run.
Cardano staged an initial coin offering (ICO). This is how the company raised money. It ran from 2015-2017 and raised over $60 million.
Here is a point that could be a potential issue. The Securities and Exchange Commission has made it clear where they stand on ICOs. Cardano could end up in the crosshairs down the road.
