Key Moments for Cardano's Community and Governance

Cardano’s community and governance approach offers a strategic advantage. How has it developed?

Summary: The story of Cardano and its development is full of ingenuity and intrigue. Charles Hoskinson, a former Ethereum co-founder, founded Cardano in 2015 and co-founded IOHK along with the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo to develop it. Cardano has successfully addressed some of the limitations present in Bitcoin, such as interoperability, scalability, and sustainability. The gradual rollout of its functionality has been divided into five unique eras, each with its own focus, with the much-awaited Voltaire era anticipated to enable Cardano's full voting capabilities for network users.

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Gather around one and all, and let us share with you one of the most interesting stories in all of crypto. A story full of intrigue and one imbued with the indomitable human spirit. A story of a visionary who would not give in or give up on his lofty goal, and who was not scared to venture out on his own as he struck off against all odds. That man is Charles Hoskinson and this is the story of Cardano and how it was able to develop its cryptosphere-leading community and governance structure.

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The History of Cardano

In 2017, Charles Hoskinson revealed Cardano, the cryptocurrency platform he had been working on since 2015, after leaving the Ethereum project, of which he was a co-founder.

The overwhelming narrative has been that Hoskinson was fueled by a fundamental disagreement regarding the direction that Ethereum was headed when he decided to venture out on his own. At the time, Vitalik Buterin had argued that Ethereum should remain a charity, whereas Hoskinson disagreed and felt that they should accept venture capital funding and become a for-profit company.

Following his departure, Hoskinson went on to co-found IOHK along with the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo, a blockchain engineering business whose main goal is the development of Cardano.

Hoskinson, an avid reader and history buff, chose to name his new cryptocurrency coin ADA as an homage to early computer programming pioneer Ada Lovelace (plenty of good reads have been published about her groundbreaking contributions to technological history).

The name Cardano, however, originates from the name Gerolamo Cardano, one of the most influential mathematicians of the Renaissance, one of the key figures in the foundation of probability, and the first European mathematician to make systematic use of negative numbers.

Cardano (the platform) has since made significant inroads addressing the earlier limitations present in Bitcoin, such as interoperability, scalability, and sustainability. Hoskinson's now-famous whiteboard movie served as the impetus for the solution to all of these issues. In the video, Hoskinoson explains Cardano's viewpoints and objectives in terms of these three domains.

We highly recommend watching the video over on YouTube if you're interested in finding out more about Cardano and its future development goals (there are some solid books out there on the development of Cardano as well). Many Cardano supporters cite this simple yet profound movie as the means by which they first learned about the project, which in turn motivated them to support and invest in Cardano.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs), which are used to issue new currencies, are how Cardano first obtained wider funding. The market value of the currency at the time of its introduction was put at $600 million. Since its inception, Cardano has been able to successfully overcome some of the biggest obstacles the cryptocurrency world has encountered. Cardano has also been able to avoid scaling issues, like those that the Ethereum platform has had to painfully overcome.

The Five Era’s of Cardano's Development

Cardano differs from competing projects in a number of aspects, the most significant of which is the gradual rollout of its functionality. Due to the blockchain's gradual adoption, Cardano is able to create an infrastructure that is both more secure and able to scale and adapt to the ever-changing world of cryptocurrencies. There are five unique eras that make up the Cardano rollout, each of which is described in more detail below.

Byron

Byron focused on setting the platform’s foundation and is recognized as Cardano’s initial development era. The Cardano project was launched in 2017 and made available to the general public along with its innovative use of the Ouroboros proof of stake method. Users could now send and receive money using the Daedalus wallet, in addition to storing ADA coins thanks to this era.

Shelley

The Shelley era focused on decentralization and is recognized as Cardano’s second development phase. In mid-2020, the much-anticipated Shelley upgrade officially began. This phase placed considerable attention (and completed months of work) ensuring that Cardano could become further decentralized and that staking was enabled.

Goguen

Cardano added smart contracts during the Goguen era. Goguen itself consisted of three distinct phases: Allegra, Mary, and Alonzo. A new version of Daedalus also became available, enabling Cardano users to send and receive native tokens. The Alonzo update, which saw the full utilization and execution of smart contracts, generated a lot of excitement within the Cardano community as well.

Basho

The main objective of the Basho era has been to increase the network's ability to support additional users. One of the most significant developments has been the use of sidechains, which are new blockchains that communicate with Cardano and have the potential to significantly expand the network's reach.

Voltaire

We are now in the process of entering the much-awaited Voltaire era. This is when Cardano's full voting capabilities will be made accessible to network users. Once this is established, everyone and anyone who is interested will have the chance to influence how Cardano is developed going forward, enabling the system to become self-sustaining.

Another change in the works for the Voltaire era is the creation of a treasury. The Cardano roadmap states that "the Voltaire era will introduce a treasury system in which a portion of all transaction fees will be pooled to provide funds for development activities carried out; after the voting process.”

We are genuinely giddy at the potential that this represents. It will require some innovative practices in order to finance the network's future development via this treasury system. This will be no small undertaking as Cardano will be creating a revolutionary system in which it will be possible to pool a portion of all transaction fees in order to provide money for post-voting development efforts. These changes will make Cardano a completely decentralized blockchain and cryptocurrency.

The Three Organizations in Charge of Cardano

Cardano differs from other cryptocurrency projects in that it has a far more scientific approach than other blockchains and is built on a foundation of peer-reviewed research.

The following three organizations back Cardano:

• Input-Output Hong Kong, or IOHK

• Emurgo

• Cardano’s Foundational Organization

IOHK

IOHK was founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Woods. It is a Hong Kong-based business that concentrates on blockchain technology infrastructure, research, and development. It is also a company that offers software development that is entirely decentralized and evidence-based.

The business creates blockchain infrastructure solutions for its clients in the public sector. In order to provide services, it also works in tandem with the public and private sectors. Both decentralized platforms and the smart contracts are propelled by it.

In order to promote adoption and close the knowledge gap between academics and technologists, John O'Connor, Head of Operations at IOHK, formed an institution with an emphasis on Africa. This institution is spearheading efforts to help resource-strapped African governments in creating 21st century Proof-of-Identity systems for important documents.

The following are some of the services that IOHK offers:

1. With PRISM, academic credentials and other forms of identity can be issued in a risk-free environment.

2. SCAN is intended to protect customers against counterfeit goods and the unauthorized use of medications.

3. Trace offers certification for products with agricultural industry roots.

The research team at IOHK has concentrated on global financial systems because decentralization has led to a variety of technological problems that these systems are currently facing.

Some of the most well-known academics in the world make up the research team of IOHK. The combined efforts of IOHK encourage both research and the creation of innovative products. Team members are strongly encouraged to collaborate on projects, provide new project ideas, and set agendas. The IOHK research team is interested in many different things, but some of its main areas of study are: cryptography, networks, distributed systems, software engineering, user interfaces, programming languages, economics, and trusted hardware.

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EMURGO

The official trading and investment arm of the Cardano project is called EMURGO Global. It has been in operation ever since it was registered in Tokyo in June 2017. A pioneer in the blockchain sector, EMURGO offers practical solutions by utilizing "3rd Generation Blockchain Technology."

The EMURGO team works closely with IOHK to further the adoption of Cardano and the growth of its ecosystem, including building, investing in, and offering advisory services to projects and organizations that utilize Cardano's decentralized blockchain environment. The organization is well-represented in New York, Singapore, Indonesia, and India.

In short, EMURGO is a global blockchain technology company that provides solutions for businesses, startups, and other organizations as well as for governments. They also create business solutions that make use of blockchain and smart contracts.

In order to develop its students into professionals in the blockchain industry and hasten the adoption of the blockchain ecosystem globally, EMURGO has also founded a first-of-its-kind learning school in India. These efforts are already paying dividends, as Cardano has begun generating investor interest on the Indian subcontinent.

EMURGO’s Two Subsidiaries

It should be noted that EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures entities make up two additional components of Cardano’s investment entity. These two businesses are entirely-owned subsidiaries of the parent company, EMURGO Ptd Ltd.

Africa EMURGO Africa

In order to facilitate the adoption of the Cardano blockchain as the technological platform standard across Africa for the development of socially useful products, EMURGO Africa aims to offer seed capital and business incubator services to local entrepreneurs.

Ventures EMURGO

In order to facilitate the development of solutions and services on Cardano, EMURGO Ventures concentrates on other developed markets with a capital allocation for seed investments in a variety of middleware solution startups and Cardano-focused firms. These businesses include those developing NFT projects, decentralized applications, blockchain developer education resources, and decentralized financial services.

The Cardano Foundation

The Cardano Foundation is a blockchain and cryptocurrency organization with its main office in Zug, Switzerland. Its core mission is the establishment of a decentralized economic system, which it aims to accomplish by collaborating with regulators from many nations to develop blockchain business standards and legal frameworks.

The Cardano Foundation seeks to empower the Cardano community to use the Cardano protocol to address issues that arise in the real world. The Cardano Foundation can be viewed as a free-standing regulatory agency that sets rules and oversees the evolution of Cardano and the ecosystem it supports.

It strives to promote adoption and foster partnerships, expand the community, modify the roadmap when necessary to meet the existing legal and business challenges, all while upholding stakeholder accountability. It should be viewed as the protocol's legal steward and the proprietor of the Cardano brand. The Foundation also has a duty to integrate cutting-edge ideas into the Cardano platform.

Conclusion

One of the ways that Cardano differs from other cryptocurrencies is that it attracts highly educated professionals. It is in fact rather unusual for a blockchain to have a scientific and philosophical approach, with a strong focus on academia, in addition to a traditional technology team.

Keep in mind that the overwhelmingly majority of alternative coins' code is derived from that of existing coins—therefore creating new features and functionality doesn't typically call for a lot of research. Cardano’s two largest rivals, Bitcoin and Ethereum have dominated the cryptocurrency market in terms of trading volume, market capitalization, and price.

In the decentralized financial (DeFi) market, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have established themselves as the most powerful cryptocurrencies. However, this represents a wonderful opportunity for the Cardano community, as both of these platforms have difficulty with scalability. To be more precise, both cryptocurrencies require a large amount of energy to operate. This results in extraordinarily high "gas fees" on Ethereum's network and exceedingly high hardware costs for entering and maintaining future Bitcoin mining.

On the other hand, Cardano is a third-generation blockchain platform built on the Ouroboros technology. Platforms that use proof of work, like Bitcoin, and ones that use less community-centric proof-of-stake frameworks like Ethereum, need a lot of computational power to validate transactions. Cardano's proof-of-stake technique, however, only needs a tiny portion of this.

We will leave you with this powerful statistic: the Cardano platform may be four million times more energy-efficient than Bitcoin’s. The wisdom of crowds is strong with Cardano, and this is the main reason why Cardano has taken a little longer to provide this cutting-edge technology to us all. In the end, Cardano is not playing by the same rules; it's turning the entire game on its head.

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Conclusion: Cardano is a platform that has been able to overcome some of the biggest obstacles the cryptocurrency world has encountered, including the sluggishness and rigidity of Bitcoin. The five eras of Cardano's development have been focused on different aspects, from setting the foundation to increasing the network's ability to support additional users. The upcoming Voltaire era will allow network users to influence how Cardano is developed going forward, enabling the system to become self-sustaining. As always, feel free to share your thoughts on Cardano and other trending cryptotopics in the comments section!

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