What is Cardano (ADA)?
Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician who was also the co-founder of Ethereum. According to the Cardano website, their vision is to develop “a blockchain platform for changemakers, innovators, and visionaries, with the tools and technologies required to create possibility for the many, as well as the few, and bring about positive global change.”
The Cardano blockchain platform is the first of its kind to be founded on peer-reviewed scientific research. The entire project is guided by academic research and all platform integrations and implementations are first researched, mathematically modeled, tested and challenged before they enter development.
Ada is the cryptocurrency token associated with Cardano. This is unlike the more familiar relationship that Bitcoin and Ethereum have where the organisation and token have the same name and both are used interchangeably. The relationship between cardano and ADA is similar to the relationship between Ripple the organisation and XRP. Ada is named after the 19-th century mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer Ada Lovelace.
How does Cardano work?
The Cardano blockchain is often referred to as the next-generation cryptocurrency. Developed using the programming language, Haskell, Cardano prides itself as “technology realised through evidence-based science.”
The blockchain platform is built on a consensus protocol called Ouroboros. According to Cardano, this allows the blockchain to tackle one of the fundamental challenges of earlier generation blockchain networks – high transaction fees as a result of increased transaction volumes. In addition to faster processing speeds, Cardano is also looking to save on energy costs by streamlining the way they process transactions.
According to Cardano, their blockchain offers opportunity beyond the world of finance that cryptocurrencies tend to be associated with. They see opportunities for the blockchain to be used in education, retail, agriculture, government and health care.
What can I do with Cardano (ADA)?
Cardano believes that the Cardano blockchain and the Ada cryptocurrency token ha use cases in the fields of:
Education
Currently academic certifications are centralised and controlled entirely by the academic institution that issues them. Cardano offers students the opportunity to decentralise control of these certifications giving them, the true owners, control and ownership. Cardano believes that a blockchain solution would secure these certifications and allow students to share these certifications with whomever they liked quickly and conveniently.
Retail
Cardano sees itself as an important tool in combating the production and sale of counterfeit retail goods. Given the sophisticated nature of goods production and online sale, Cardano believes their blockchain would be a powerful solution to ensure the labelling of original goods being produced. The Cardano blockchain would add a tamper-proof solution that establishes the authenticity of retail goods being produced anywhere in the world.
Finance
Anyone who’s tried to open a bank account in a traditional bank knows that it is a painful process that could take days, if not weeks. Cardano believes that by allowing users to securely store credentials and identifying documents on their blockchain, you could reduce the friction and the amount of time that it takes to carry out simple processes like opening a new bank account.
Investment
But what if you’re not someone who works in these fields or is looking to setup suck processes, could you still be involved with Cardano and Ada. The answer is: Definitely. For the rest of us not involved in financial regulation and product counterfeiting prevention, Ada works as a store of value. Similar to Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrency tokens, you could invest in Cardano by purchasing Ada and potentially reap the benefits were it to grow in value.
How to buy Cardano in Australia?
You can buy Cardano through any digital currency exchange. All digital currency exchanges in Australia are regulated by AUSTRAC.
Chillur is an Australian digital currency exchange, registered and regulated by AUSTRAC that simplifies the process of buying Cardano in Australia.
You can buy Cardano in Australia using Chillur in two easy steps.
Step 1: Create an account
Create your Chillur account using an email address and password. You will then need to verify your identity using either your passport or drivers licence.
Step 2: Transfer funds to your account
Use your banking app or web banking to transfer funds to your Chillur account.
Once the funds settle (1-2 business days), the system will automatically buy Cardano (and 9 other cryptocurrencies).
Congratulations! You now own Cardano in your Chillur account
How to invest in Cardano (ADA)?
Investing in Cardano is the process of buying Cardano today with the expectation that it will go up in value in the future.
Portfolios with Cardano have seen returns of 200% after 3 years.
You can invest in Cardano using Chillur in three easy steps.
Step 1: Create an account
Create your Chillur account using an email address and password. You will then need to verify your identity using either your passport or drivers licence.
Step 2: Buy the Chillur 10 bundle
Chillur offers bundles of cryptocurrencies. What this means is that rather than picking and choosing which cryptocurrency to buy and at what price, you are able to buy 10 cryptocurrencies in a go. Chillur handles how much and the purchase price.
Step 3: Track your investment performance
Simply login into your Chillur account and track the performance of your portfolio either through a laptop or your mobile phone.
Where do I store my Cardano?
All cryptocurrencies are stored in cryptocurrency wallets. Cryptocurrency wallets are physical devices as well as mobile phone apps that are either specially designed to hold just one kind of cryptocurrency or you can store multiple cryptocurrencies in the same wallet. In addition, Cardano also offers its own wallet called Daedalus. So if you were looking to store your Cardano Ada individually from the other cryptocurrencies that you own, you would need to store them in the Daedalus wallet. The third way to store Cardano Ada is to leave it in the wallet on the cryptocurrency exchange that you purchased it from.
What’s next for Cardano?
Cardano has outlined a five stage development roadmap for their future, named Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho and Voltaire.The first stage, Byron, is completed and allowed users to buy Ada when it first launched and store them on their own Daedalus wallet. This phase was their initial growth phase that took Ada international and made them the one of the top most popular cryptocurrencies world wide.Cardano is now working on the Shelley and Goguen phases of the roadmap in parallel. The shelley stage introduced new features such as a reward system to grow community adoption and encourage more people to participate in the network. The work on this era will ensure the decentralisation of the blockchain but will ensure that it remains, by their own claim, upto 100 times more decentralised than any other network.
The Goguen phase, which is currently also in production, introduces smart contracts onto the Cardano blockchain. This will see the introduction of a brand new smart contract development language and execution platform. Cardano also has plans to allow the creation of new cryptocurrencies on its network and has the ultimate vision of bringing all kinds of people onto its platform to make use of its apps.The final stage of the Cardano roadmap, known as Voltaire, will see the network become completely self-sustaining and independent. It’s safe to say that this phase of Cardano’s roadmap is going to take a good few years before it even begins. Which is a more round-about way of saying that the only way to know how successful and mainstream Cardano will be is to join them on their journey. And that’s precisely what countless Ada investors are doing.