CARDANO price, news and Forecast (ADA US DOLLAR)
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WHAT IS CARDANO?
Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform aimed at creating a secure and scalable infrastructure for decentralized applications (dapps). Founded by Charles Hoskinson in 2017, Cardano was created to be an alternative to Ethereum by offering users increased throughput and low transaction fees.
Its native cryptocurrency, ADA – named after mathematician Ada Lovelace – is used as payment for transaction fees, staking and governance within the Cardano ecosystem. ADA ranks as the tenth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $21.1 billion as of July 8, 2025.
How does Cardano work?
Cardano runs on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism called Ouroboros, which enhances energy efficiency compared to traditional proof-of-work blockchains.
Since its creation, Cardano has undergone several hard forks including Shelley, Allegra, Mary, Alonzo, Vasil, Valentine and Chang 1. The Shelley upgrade in 2020 was the first hard fork, marking a pivotal transition that made Cardano a decentralized network. It also introduced staking allowing ADA holders to earn rewards by participating in the network's consensus process.
ADA holders can delegate their coins to staking pools to increase their chances of earning rewards for participating in the network's consensus and governance process.
In August 2021, Charles Hoskinson announced the Alonzo hard fork, which introduced smart contract capabilities to Cardano, with over 100 smart contracts deployed within the first 24 hours.
Some of Cardano's real-world demonstrated use cases involve tracking agricultural production, securely storing educational credentials and helping retailers combat counterfeit products.
Differences between Ethereum and Cardano
- Cardano leverages an Ouroboros Proof-of-Stake process that divides chains into epochs, which are further divided into time slots. Staking pools, also known as slot leaders, are elected for validating transactions and adding blocks to the chain per slot time. Ethereum, on the other hand, transitioned from a Proof-of-Work to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism in 2022.
- ADA has a fixed supply of 45 billion ADA, while Ethereum has no supply cap. However, Ethereum leverages a burn mechanism to keep its supply at around 120 million ETH.
- Cardano can theoretically process over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) while Ethereum lags behind with only 20-30 TPS.
- Cardano has very few dapps compared to Ethereum, which boasts over 5,000 applications.