Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
March 05, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Cardano (token ADA,
market cap $7+ billion) is the first blockchain with academically
peer-reviewed open source code, giving it a lot of geek appeal.
Cardano is an ambitious blockchain dApp project that competes on
the same field as Ethereum and NEO as a platform aiming to enable a
"smart economy". But Ethereum's technology development protocol is
rudimentary by comparison, relying on a governance system to
upgrade and scale.
Bitcoin and Litecoin are cryptocurrencies. Ethereum and Neo are
platforms that happen to support currencies. Cardano is both in
equal parts. To simplify: "Bitcoin was the 1st generation of
blockchain, Ethereum is a 2nd generation blockchain, and Cardano is
3rd generation blockchain."
Cardano was formally conceived and presented in 2014, not with a
whitepaper, but, rather, with collective research and
collaboration, focused on identifying ground up code fixes to
address the limitations of previous blockchains. Poor coding and
development can lead to catastrophic hacks. With Cardano, each
tweak to, or iteration of, the protocol is submitted to experts and
conferences for review before being added to the larger
project.
Why is this important? There are probably less developers in the
world right now who can effectively code a blockchain project than
there are the 1536 cryptocurrencies currently posted on
coinmarketcap.com today. The result? Lots of scam projects are on
that list, and even more legitimate projects that are just done
poorly.
How do you know that a project and its code is good? Two ways:
One way is the 2nd generation of blockchain tech where tokens that
are put through a "trial and error" road of adoption, like Ethereum
and NEO. The second way is Cardano’s 3rd generation of blockchain
tech method of "peer review".
Ethereum's primary fix was better handling of the "who, what,
and why" metadata associated with each transaction on the
blockchain using programmable "smart" contracts. However, with
Ethereum, this information is still stored together with no
separation between computing and accounting. Processing more data
with each transaction costs more gas, making blockchain history
node storage cumbersome. Cardano separates the transfer and the
“what and why”, reducing strain on nodes, thus improving
scalability while at the same time increasing security.
Cardano's blockchain 3.0 ecosystem is supported by three
entities, which, between themselves, delegate the various tasks
related to adoption and marketing, development and engineering, and
investment and networking:
- The "Cardano Foundation" educates regulators and NGO's about the
Cardano cryptocurrency; providing transparency which in turn
facilitates faster and wider adoption.
- "Input Output Hong Kong" (IOHK) is large team of "accredited"
researchers who work on improving technologies and digital wallets
for both Cardano and Ethereum Classic.
- Japanese-based "Emurgo" invests in startups developing new
Cardano products and assists larger businesses with integrating
Cardano blockchain technology into existing products.
Cardano's platform improvements evolve from small interdisciplinary
teams of developers and academics working on an intelligently
delegated “to-do list”. Teams work in two week intervals, releasing
small, incremental updates. Cardano is a 3.0 blockchain; a
blockchain that can better adapt to its environment. It is a
"stronger species" of blockchain. Watch for an especially powerful
Cardano upgrade titled "Shelley" in Q2 2018.
By: BGN Editorial Staff