Here at Coinmama, we recognised the potential of an exciting new cryptocurrency back in late 2017, so added it to our lineup of purchasable cryptocurrencies alongside Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH). That promising new coin was, of course, Cardano, also known by its ticker symbol of ADA.
Now in 2021, with ADA coin news headlines all over mainstream financial publications and ADA’s crypto market cap ranking rising to an impressive 4th just behind Tether, it’s time to review our decision to support Cardano. We hope that our support for the Cardano (ADA) platform has helped you, our valued customer, to take advantage of what has been one of the best-performing digital assets in recent memory.
Cardano’s History at Coinmama
The Cardano platform and its ADA token was introduced on Coinmama as a purchasable asset on September 29, 2017, after many requests from our customers seeking an easy way to purchase ADA. Cardano and its ADA token are a project developed by the firm Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), _ led by its lead developer Charles Hoskinson. Hoskinson is a well-known contributor to the cryptocurrency industry after co-founding two very large projects; namely Ethereum and Bitshares. Since then Hoskinson had dedicated his energy towards advancing IOHK and the ADA cryptocurrency. In contrast to coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum which use a Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining mechanism, the Cardano platform, and ADA distribution is mined by a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) method called ‘Ouroboros.’ This means newly created coins are created by those who hold ADA in their Daedalus wallets and the more stake an owner has invested, the more they accrue. Moreover, the Cardano technology aims to add features like metadata, side chains, smart contracts, decentralized apps (Dapps), and multi-party computation. Right now (in mid-February of 2021) Cardano’s ADA token has an average price of $0.86 U.S. cents per token. ADA price saw a huge jump in the first two weeks of February, tripling from the 30 cent range to reach above 90 cents, the highest level since its all time high made in January of 2018, shortly following release. The current price makes ADA the fourth largest coin by cryptocurrency valuation. ADA’s total market cap is around $28 billion USD, as there are nearly 32 Bn ADA in circulation at present. Over the past couple of weeks, ADA has seen huge market interest, with daily trading volumes frequently above $5 billion and an all time high of nearly $11 billion achieved on the 11th of February 2021.Here are a few reasons why cryptocurrency investors like the Cardano platform and ADA:
- Proof-of-Stake. ADA offers investors a Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism which rewards investors for holding coins. Newly minted coins are distributed using PoS and proponents believe this to be a more fair and efficient distribution method in comparison to _ Proof of Work schemes. Moreover, PoS is more environmentally friendly because it doesn’t rely on the use of expensive machinery and vast quantities of electricity to create coins, as with Bitcoin mining.
- Features. Cardano aims to have similar features to the Ethereum network, and Cardano developers aim to add token creation, Dapps, smart contracts and more. Hoskinson has predicted that “hundreds of assets… thousands of DApps, tons of interesting projects…” will be seen running on Cardano in 2021. With the promised ability to convert Ethereum Dapps to run on Cardano’s platform, this ambitious goal could be achieved.
- Development. Charles Hoskinson is a very well respected cryptographer and developer. Both Ethereum and Bitshares are two projects he co-founded and are now billion dollar cryptocurrency networks. ADA aims to have the same potential, and enthusiast believe Hoskinson working on the project will drive more innovation. With the Shelley upgrade to Cardano launching successfully in mid-2020, confidence is high for the upcoming Goguen mainnet launch, scheduled for March 2021. Goguen will add smart contract functionality, really opening up Cardano’s functionality. Stay tuned for ADA coin news around this exciting development!
- New and inexpensive. Cardano is a new project starting from the ground up and ADA tokens are still inexpensive compared to some other cryptocurrencies. Cardano proponents believe the project has great potential and is currently in its very nascent stages.
