Cardano (ADA) is a blockchain platform that is often dubbed as the “Ethereum killer”. Over the last few years Cardano and its native cryptocurrency ADA gained popularity and ADA’s value is trading at more than 1800% above its launch level, as of 12 August.
Yet what’s the total value of the blockchain and how many cardano coins are there? Here we take a look at ADA’s circulating supply – an important metric in cryptocurrency markets that suggest how scarce a digital asset is.
What is Cardano?
Cardano is a decentralised proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain launched in 2017 as a third-generation cryptocurrency platform used to build smart contracts and create decentralised applications (dApps), and protocols, such as new cryptocurrency tokens, games and more.
Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, Ethereum’s co-founder, who left the project after falling out with Vitalik Buterin, the blockchain’s other co-founder, over whether Ethereum should be commercialised.
Cardano was designed as a more scalable, interoperable and sustainable blockchain, intending to improve on the problems Bitcoin and Ethereum have. This led the supporters to label Cardano as an “Ethereum killer”.
Its PoS mechanism is stated to be the “most environmentally sustainable blockchain protocol” as it eliminates the high energy resources required by the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, which Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are often criticised for.
According to the project’s website, Cardano is the first platform created based on peer-reviewed research and evidence-based methods. The project was designed by engineers and academics in the cryptography and blockchain fields.
Cardano is designed to be developed in “eras” named after prominent figures in poetry and computer science history: Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire. Basho is the current era of the blockchain (as of 12 August) which…
