1. It's one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies

If you think of Bitcoin as a first generation crypto, Ethereum as a second generation, Cardano is pitched as the third generation cryptocurrency. It wants to solve the three biggest issues with current coins - sustainability, scalability, and interoperability.





The biggest advantage of Cardano is that unlike Bitcoin, it's built with two layers. You have the first layer called the Cardano Settlement Layer which works as a more efficient bitcoin, handling the balance ledger and basic transaction side of things.









It has the second layer though, called the Cardano Computation Layer. This is where decentralized apps and smart contracts built on Cardano will be based and can operate separately on the CSL layer.





These multiple layers also mean that changes can be made to the platform without a fork.





Cardano itself was developed through peer-reviewed academic research and is based on the Haskell programming language, which is viewed as extremely secure and uses mathematical proof of correctness to verify code.





2. It has a clear, transparent roadmap

The non-profit Cardano Foundation oversees the majority of community and product development for Cardano, and regularly updates the progress of its updates. In fact, next week they're due to give another major progress update to the platform.





On the Cardano roadmap website, you can see its next major update Shelley and is due in Q2 2018. Shelley is designed to turn Cardano into a fully decentralized and autonomous system.





After Shelley, they will release the Goguen update which will introduce a virtual machine and universal language framework. This update will allow third parties to create tokens and more powerful decentralized apps on the platform.





3. Could it be the new Ethereum?

Cardano has the potential to be the new default for decentralized app development and smart contracts, thanks to its ability to scale and handle transactions in a faster way. The platform will also support smart contracts written in Ethereum's Solidity language too.





However, it still faces tough competition from Ethereum. Ethereum is both the more established technology and better known, gaining more market share and awareness with every day. The team behind Ethereum is also looking at introducing the Plasma update next year which will add a second layer solution, allowing Ethereum to handle much larger data sets and help solve some scalability issues. Ethereum's founder believes that this technology will eventually be able to handle the same number of transactions per second as Visa.





Cardano needs to establish itself and its final tech before Ethereum gets to this point.





4. ADA will be available on a network of ATMs in Japan next year

Japan is currently the second largest market in the world for cryptocurrencies after the USA, with both consumers and businesses showing interest in multiple platforms. The introduction of 25 ATMs will make it much easier for consumers in such a big market to become involved with ADA and bring it into the mainstream.





5. The continued crypto hype

The buzz around cryptocurrencies is expected to keep growing in 2018 as more use cases for blockchain based technology continue to pop up, as well as Bitcoin's continued dominance of headlines as it reaches new values. As a result, attention will be brought to other coins for buyers to invest in, particularly those ones that have a sharp rise in value like Cardano is having.



