Understanding Cardano, IOHK, and EMURGO

Cardano is the first decentralized public blockchain platform that developed on a research-first driven approach. Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum, created it in 2015 and later launched it in 2017. It comprises a development team of global researchers and engineers.

This platform’s development continued thanks to academics and computer scientists and their peer-reviewed papers. The Cardano ecosystem involves three founding entities that work together. These partners are EMURGO, IOHK Company, and The Cardano Foundation.

Cardano in a Nutshell

Cardano is a public proof-of-stake blockchain platform that has a decentralized system and is open-source. Its mission is to become a more scalable and sustainable blockchain network that does not rely on miners.

Cardano uses Ada cryptocurrency to ease peer-to-peer transactions. Ada is the most prominent cryptocurrency to use proof-of-stake blockchain and a better alternative for PoW. Also, it is the first blockchain platform by following evidence-based methods and peer-reviewed research. Furthermore, its technology provides security and sustainability to societies, systems, and decentralized applications.

Cardano uses Ouroboros proof-of-stake protocol, unlike Ethereum and Bitcoin that use proof-of-work, which uses a lot of energy. For instance, Ouroboros enables decentralization and scaling to global requirements without compromising security. The protocol develops on scientific research. Lastly, it focuses on providing a more secure and transparent payment system.

What is ADA?

ADA is the digital token used on the Cardano blockchain network. The token gets its name from Ada Lovelace, a famous lady mathematician of the 19th-century. In the proof-of-stake mechanism, ADA holders participate in verifying transactions.

The most common method used is staking, holding with pool operators. The system chooses pool operators depending on the stake amount that a pool receives. According to Cardano’s website, an ADA holder receives financial rewards after delegating their stake to a pool operator. Then, the platform chooses the collection and produces a new block.

The price of Ada is the third-highest cryptocurrency with a market cap of more than $90 billion. Ada’s price has doubled since last month, trading at $2.85, up from $1.28. At the beginning of the year, trading at below 20 cents, the price of Ada has surged nearly 1500%.

Ada can be bought on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase Global Inc or Payward Inc.’s Kraken. In addition, there are also platforms for retail investing that allow users to trade Ada. They include Israel-trading platform eToro Group Limited and SoFi Technologies.

Benefits of Cardano

Let’s look at some of the advantages of Cardano if you are looking to invest in it.

• Cardano Brings an Open and Inclusive Standard in Technology – It restores trust in global systems, organizations providing a more transparent, secure, and sustainable environment for transactions.
• Active Research and Development Team – Advocates for Cardano say this is one of its most significant advantages since it ensures no weaknesses in this protocol.
• By design, Cardano has to use multiple layers – These layers include the computational and settlement layer. Also, multiple layers allow updating without tampering with transactions and payments.
• Security Features – The use of a proof-of-stake mechanism ensures the safety of the network.

IOHK

IOHK is a global blockchain infrastructure, research, and engineering company. Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood founded it in 2015. It is a fully decentralized organization that provides evidence-based software development. The company builds blockchain infrastructure solutions for government clients. Additionally, it services the public and private sectors. Lastly, it is the force behind the smart contract and decentralized platform.

The IOHK offers services like:

1. PRISM – It provides a secure environment for credential issuance and academic certifications.
2. SCAN – It targets to protect users from unauthorized pharmaceutical products and fake goods.
3. Trace – It certifies products in the Agricultural sector.

The vision of IOHK

This blockchain research company aims to be a leading institution of fintech blockchain infrastructure study. The company is building a solid foundation in the fintech industry. IOHK research team interests lie in financial systems worldwide with technological challenges imposed by decentralization.

The IOHK research team comprises talent from top universities across the globe. IOHK encourages research and innovation through collective effort. The team members are free to propose an idea for a project and can establish agendas and collaborations.

The IOHK research team’s interests are cryptography, networks, distributed systems, software engineering, human-computer interaction, programming languages, economics, and trusted hardware.

EMURGO

EMURGO is one of the founding partners of the Cardano network and helps integrate the business into the blockchain system. In addition, they develop, support, and incubate commercial opportunities.

EMURGO dedicates itself to providing solutions to some of the most complex problems organizations face. They offer courses and expertise to universities, enterprises, professionals, and blockchain engineers. India is home to EMURGO academy. Students come from esteemed companies such as IBM, Bank of America, GE, Morgan Stanley, Accenture, S&P, and more.

EMURGO’s Role in Cardano

EMURGO helps in the large-scale development of the Cardano blockchain. They deploy rapid solutions that benefit clients globally. This company has announced a partnership with Occam, a DeFi ecosystem. The collaboration will help in the development of Cardano’s upcoming Decentralized Finance (DeFi) landscape.

What’s the Future of Cardano

Connecting blockchain protocols and collaborating applications achieve decentralized finance (DeFi).Cardano will support the ERC20 token migration to its network. Also, the token should expand the use cases for businesses and application developers.

Furthermore, the network is working to enable smart contracts and build decentralized applications (DApps). Among them are Plutus and the Alonzo hard fork smart contracts. As a result, users will soon be able to take advantage of Cardano’s lower fees and transaction capacity. They will also enjoy reduced cost, improved security, and interoperability.

Final Word