Cardano (ADA), a relatively new cryptocurrency, has experienced a massive surge in value, securing a position among the top ten digital assets by market capitalization. The coin’s price exploded from just $0.02 to a high of $0.59 within three months. As of December 29th, 2017, ADA is valued at $0.43 with a market cap of $11.38 billion, showing remarkable growth since its public trading began on October 1st, 2017.
A Meteoric Rise in a Short Time
The rapid ascent of Cardano has caught the attention of the entire cryptocurrency community. Its journey has been nothing short of spectacular for early investors.
Within three months of start, ADA coin exploding in price from the US $0.02 to $0.59 on December 19. This represents a significant return for those who participated in the project’s pre-sale, where 26 billion tokens were sold for just $0.0024 each between 2015 and 2017.
Even with a recent pullback, the project’s valuation remains strong. The market cap only saw a minor drop to $11.38 billion from a recent high of $13.27 billion, demonstrating investor confidence. This performance has firmly placed Cardano in the 6th position on the market cap leaderboard.
What is Driving the Cardano Project?
Unlike many other crypto projects, Cardano is supported by a multi-organizational structure designed to ensure its long-term success and decentralization. This unique setup involves a blend of non-profit and for-profit entities.
The ecosystem is primarily composed of three distinct bodies working together:
- The Cardano Foundation: A non-profit organization based in Switzerland, focused on standardizing, protecting, and promoting the Cardano protocol and its community.
- IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong): The for-profit technology and engineering company responsible for the research and development of the Cardano platform.
- Emurgo: Another key company involved, focused on driving the commercial adoption of Cardano and supporting businesses that want to build on the blockchain.
The credibility of the project is further boosted by its founders. IOHK was founded in 2014 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, both of whom were involved in the initial stages of the Ethereum project.
A Focus on Research and Secure Technology
Cardano distinguishes itself with a philosophy rooted in scientific research and a high-assurance codebase. This academic approach aims to create a more secure and scalable blockchain.
Professor Philip Wadler of IOHK highlighted this difference, stating, “The Cardano project is built to parameters combining peer reviewed cryptographic research, with an implementation in highly secure Haskell code. This is not the copy & paste code seen in so many other blockchains.”
The development team has released reports on their progress across several core components, including the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) and the Cardano Computation Layer (CCL). These two layers are designed to separate the accounting of value from the computational aspects, a key strategy to mitigate scaling problems faced by other blockchains.
Future Outlook and Development Updates
Investors and enthusiasts are eagerly watching for what comes next. According to an official update from the Cardano team, most of the technical staff are currently on leave for the holidays.
This brief pause should not be a cause for concern. All the developments will resume in the beginning of next month, ensuring that progress on the project’s ambitious roadmap continues.
With its strong technological foundation and growing community support, there is considerable optimism surrounding Cardano’s future. Many in the market believe the coin will reach the US$1.00 mark, a price point that would likely attract even more new buyers from around the world.
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