Whatever data aggregation site it is that you choose to check, be it Coingecko or CoinMarketCap, you'll find Cardano's ADA token sitting at number 7 of the top tokens with a market cap of $4.2 billion, just behind the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, Ripple and the likes. But unlike the rest, Cardano has a lot of difference from all of them. What exactly is this token Cardano though? And how is it different from all the rest? That is what we will be talking about right about now.
Interestingly enough, Cardano was founded and started by two co-founders of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood. Both left the Ethereum project after a disagreement with Vitalik Buterin and other developers on how best to further develop the Ethereum technology and project. Between September 2015 and January 2017, Cardano held its Initial Coin offering (ICO), and they were able to raise a total of $62 million.
Cardano prides itself as a 3rd generation Blockchain project, this is as a result of its scientific and research and development driven philosophy. Their constant aim is to develop and continue to upgrade till they attain a technology that is truly secure, scalable and flexible all at the same time. Mass adoption has also always been the goal right from the beginning for Charles Hoskinson and the Cardano team, and we are beginning to see the Mass adoption come to fruition. Comparing it to other Blockchain projects, Cardano is way different because they are strictly after a policy that seeks to combine the needs of the Community with that of the body in charge, they also do well in my opinion to combine privacy with regulations. Cardano in its most basic form is all about giving easy and open acces to the billions around the world who are marginalised and are not privy to make use of the banking features a lot enjoy. Cardano seeks to bridge that gap and give them a platform they can use to connect financially with the rest of the world and access those services they have been severed from.
Like I said earlier, Cardano is all about Research and Development, and they recently just Hard Forked from the Byron phase to the Shelley phase. The Shelley phase has made them one of the most Decentralised projects in my opinion, bringing about Staking features and also giving nodes a seat at the governing table, it has also made them more appealing to business and investors. We await the next stage which is the Goguen phase, which will see Smart contracts getting integrated into the Cardano Network. Cardano is ranked highly on sustainability, scalability, and transparency, and that makes Cardano stand out for me. That is also why they are a pretty good investment opportunity, because their ADA token has so much promise, and I can get passive rewards all by staking it.
They are one of the few projects who I know that effectively combine having a use-case worthy of mass adoption, to having a most dedicated and experienced team that can take it to the heights it desires and deserves, to having a most loyal and active community ready to push it's cause. I sure am tipping Cardano to do big things indeed.