2021 is already proving to be a big year for third generation blockchain player Cardano.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening, and where Cardano might go from here!
Cardano moves into Africa
The Cardano Africa launch has kicked off with the announcement of a partnership with the Ethiopian Government in the education sector. This will involve a blockchain-based student ID and education attainment recording system covering five million students. According to Cardano, it’s the biggest blockchain deployment project ever.
It’s an impressive start for their debut in Africa, with projects to follow across the continent. Planting of Cardano-backed blockchain technology in Africa in this manner and scale signals the start of a use case for the blockchain industry for “the continent of pioneers”—a new era which will see bright creative minds synergise and contribute like never before.
According to Cardano, “blockchain solutions and decentralised infrastructure will transform access to government services, unlock financial opportunity and level the playing field for the citizens of developing countries.”
ADA shining bright
In March, the Cardano token ADA was listed on major exchange CoinBase. ADA caught much attention when it hit the number three spot under Ethereum and Bitcoin. At the time of writing, ADA is trading at 1.74 with a market cap of 55.6b.
Cardano as base layer and Ethereum player
Cardano enthusiasts rejoiced when initial testing of the ERC-20 converter succeeded. It’s widely known that second generation Ethereum’s layer where settlement/smart contracts take place has reached saturation, with resultant costly transaction fees. These scalability issues were main driving forces for the creation of IOHK and Cardano. With Ethereum 2.0 only expected to be fully functional as late as 2022, more and more developers may choose to build on or migrate to Cardano where there are little or no fees, with the added advantage that payment isn’t limited to ADA but payable in multiple assets.
Due to first mover advantage it may take a while to catch up with Ethereum. However last mover advantage could cascade into effect when fool-proof development coalesces with what’s happening in Africa. We’re certainly bound to find out soon. Cardano Africa is sure to bring a whole new momentum to the industry—remember how Africa leapfrogged to mobile phones?
Ouroboros Omega paper close to release
Cardano was the first research-first driven blockchain platform—specifically founded to be decentralised, public, completely open source and patent-free.
IOHK, the engineering company behind Cardano, was co-founded in 2015 by mathematician Charles Hoskinson and former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood. In 2017, Hoskinson founded Cardano as a key project of IOHK.
Status updates and research papers are released periodically for peer-review by a global team of experts, making for joint development by IOHK and partners.
The highly-anticipated Ouroboros (Cardano’s proof-of-stake blockchain protocol) Omega paper is set to come out in August this year, where they will aim to combine their best ideas over the last six years, according to Hoskinson.
That will be an update to watch for!
