Every once in a while, traders can find a neat new alternative to Bitcoin or Ethereum. For instance, a brand-new piece by Vivek Sancheti at Cryptoground talks about a smart contract platform you may have never heard about called Cardano.
Sancheti’s article explains that Cardano came from looking at the Ethereum blockchain, understanding some of the former coin’s shortfalls, and coming up with solutions.
Experts cite the ‘proof of work’ algorithm as a problem with traditional digital payment systems on the blockchain – to get around this, Cardano introduces the ‘proof of stake’ algorithm instead – staking amounts of Cardano to a particular address in order to simplify the processing power that’s needed for this phase of the process.
Something called the Ouribouri algorithm delegates a lot of this work to cut down the time and energy involved.
As benefits of Cardano, proponents site scalability, throughput and relatively low transaction fees.
Another interesting thing about this cryptocurrency is where it came from – at the head of the list of developers is Charles Hoskinson, former co-founder of Ethereum. It makes sense of in light of that fact that Cardano is sometimes called the “Ethereum killer,” and that it works off of Ethereum’s build while also refining it to some extent.
The Cardano team also cites more extensive testing and better compliance with some regulations.
When it comes to value, there are some big questions – Sancheti suggests that future innovations are going to bring a currently low price back up next year – however, if you look at the price chart, you can see that after an initial spike at the beginning of this year, Cardano’s value came back down – and went further and further and further down to its current value of around half a cent. So is it a good penny crypto currency or is it just a dud? Time will tell.
Meanwhile, Ethereum itself hovers around $195 – and a look back at historical charts shows how Cardano’s fall might not be in itself such an anomaly – after all, ETH USD fell from a high of nearly $1500 just half a year ago to where it is today. The overall selloff of cryptos over the past year looks like a larger trend, and to some who have now diversified into blockchain-related stocks, a trend that is likely to reverse eventually.
