Investigating the Top 50 Cryptocurrencies, Part 36/50: Cardano

Cardano is an increasingly popular blockchain project which uses a rigorous scientific process to develop a scalable, secure cryptocurrency.

_{source: https://www.cardanohub.org/en/home/}

This top 50 list is in order based on a market snapshot that happened back in October, hence Cardano falling here in the list. Today, it’s a top 10 token with a market cap of more than $5 billion dollars.

I was amazed to see that Cardano is worth so much. To be honest this is a blockchain I had heard very little about. My research revealed some interesting facts: That the founder of this project also founded Ethereum and Bitshares, for one thing. The technology side of the project did seem a bit unexciting to me if I am being honest.

There is a lot of money and a passionate community surrounding this token. For example when The Merkle recently featured a negative piece about Cardano, pro-Cardano folks stormed the comments in anger.

_{comments from the merkle article}

In this post we’ll take a closer look at what the Cardano blockchain does and about the future prospects of this project.

About This Series + Disclaimer

This post is part of a new series where I investigate each of the top 50 coins by market cap (based on coinmarketcap.com's rankings on October 11, 2017). My goal is to help steem’s userbase become the most knowledgable blockchain community in the world.

Disclaimer: I am not an investment expert and will not be providing investment advice. I will teach you about the top 50 coins, and you can do what you want with that info.

What is Cardano?

You can think of Cardano as an updated version of Bitcoin. It’s an original set of code designed by scientific principles where all work is peer reviewed. In theory, this review system holds the Cardano blockchain up to a higher security standard than other blockchains.

The blockchain world generally has a DIY/decentralized ethic. If you can do something, do it. Cardano is trying to be more formal with their work and design a cryptocurrency that is up to the task of being a reliable global currency.

The Cardano homepage makes a big deal about striking the balance between privacy and regulation. They reference Monero and talk about how individual rights are important, but that regulatory issues need to be taken into account.

For all of this talk, as far as I can tell, the blockchain is not anonymous. The wording on the website is unusually vague in this area, but I’m pretty sure transactions can be looked at a lot like with Bitcoin.

The Three Groups Behind Cardano

Cardano has a regulatory structure for itself that features three separate organizations. Here is what each one does:

(1) Cardano Foundation

_{source: cardanofoundation.com}

This is the group that promotes Cardano. They do a lot of outreach such as going to different cities to onboard new people into the blockchain ecosystem. They also “function as an objective standards body” for the project.

(2) IOHK

_{source: https://iohk.io}

This is the company that is building Cardano. They’ve been in business since 2015, the brainchild of Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, with the stated goal of enabling banking for the billions of unbanked people in the world today.

(3) Emurgo

_{source: emurgo.io}

Emurgo is a for-profit incubator that aims to bring entrepreneurs into the Cardano ecosystem. This organization offers funding and logistical support for people who are making Cardano part of the way they do business.

Token Distribution

Cardano’s ADA tokens were distributed in a $62 million crowdsale, with the vast majority (95%) of tokens being sold to Japanese buyers. This comes out to nearly 26 billion tokens at a value of about $0.20 per token as of today.

The theoretical maximum number of tokens that could have been distributed in the token sale was 45 billion. There are no new tokens issued for block rewards - network fees cover those payments instead - so I don’t think any more tokens are to be issued in the future. It’s a little unclear though with the way the press releases are worded.

The Cardano Team

Here’s some information on the key people behind Cardano. All photos are from https://iohk.io/team

Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK

Charles is the co-founder and CEO of the company that develops the Cardano blockchain. He’s a huge deal, having also co-founded Ethereum and Bitshares. Prior to all that, he studied Analytic Number Theory in college.

Jeremy Wood, CSO of IOHK

Jeremy lived in Osaka, Japan starting in 2008 and became involved with Ethereum as the manager of operations at the end of 2013. He founded IOHK with Charles in 2015 and has been focused on the project ever since.

Market History

Here’s what the ADA token chart looks like:

Holy pump! The chart is too short for me to have much to say about it… right now obviously the token is at new highs and the cryptocurrency markets in general have gone crazy for the last two weeks, so I have no idea what happens next.

Final Thoughts

Cardano looks like a good blockchain. I’m still surprised to see it having a market capitalization of more than $5 billion since I don’t know what distinguishes it as such a good project.

Maybe it is the clout of the founder, Charles Hoskinson, who also founded Ethereum and Bitshares. With as good a track record as that, it might not be hard to get investors interested in the project. Will they maintain the momentum as the project develops? Hard to say.

Does anybody have insights on why this blockchain is so popular right now?