I hear LOTS of people talk about Cardano. Surprisingly, I haven't even touched anything related to it until today and I'm guessing that's because there's like, a GAJILLION different cryptos out there now. Sue me. I have a short attention span.

It's funny to think about it; In order to be a player in the Blockchain/Crypto space, you often start out as a person with a cavalier mindset. Are we creating the next blockchain solution to to supersede the transactions-per-second of bitcoin, or to increase efficacy of the tech in some small way? HELL NO. We are going after the Big Boys, dicks in hand. We're gonna take on the Industry Giants! If we win, we shall be the Standard Bearers of a New Era. If we Fail, that's alright, because tonight WE DINE IN HELL. HODL, BITCHES!

It's risky, sexy and super awesome. Look at Brave/BAT. Look at LibertyOS. Shit, look at STEEM! Trying to implement a blockchain solution for say, appraisal districts to organize title rights to real property is something that can definitely make the money. But it ain't sexy. It's something you do because it needs to be done. Like going to Thanksgiving Dinner with your family.

Watch The Eyes Glaze Like the Ham When You Talk About DPoS.

In any case, sometimes the hard not-so-sexy academic work needs to be done. And Cardano "done slap the shit" outta doing their homework.

Get to The Point, Fat Ginger Man. What The HELL Is Cardano?

Alright, take it easy. Cardano is relatively difficult to explain because the underlying technicals of the cryptocurrency relies on... A LOT. Now, I like to pretend that I'm a halfway decently intelligent person. I have gotten really good at it and nobody has figured out that I'm an idiot yet. But, researching this stretched me to the limit. Why? Because the whitepaper essentially consists of a "High Level" Philosophy Statement. And ALL Of These Papers. Oh, yeah, Don't know if you have enough to really get a solid grasp? NO PROBLEM, they have a whole 'nother effing website called whycardano.com. A Whitepaper is supposed to go over the tech, the problems solved, the everything for the cryptocurrency. It's the why the stuff exists in an easily digestible and comprehensive format. They have a whole damn website. For their whitepaper. And if you want a more portable format, the 44 page "Whitepaper" is here. That... actually did make it easier to handle. Consider it a primer.

Don't get it twisted, folks. I get a hard-on for this type of stuff. I love it. I breathe it. I sleep it. However, If I were to try and go over the entirety of Cardano in a single post, This would end up being a 3 hour read. They make Stellar look like a Kindergarten finger-paint project.

Pictured: Kindergarten.

So, in order to do this topic justice, I'm gonna go over the basic philosophy, touch on the tech just a little, and give you my thoughts on it as a whole. I keep my sanity, you keep your time, and we both live another day. There are links to a lot of stuff here. The deep dive is yours on this one, if you're brave enough.

The Ouroboros Part of Cardano.

So basically, Cardano in and of itself is not just a cryptocurrency. ADA is the ticker name of it, and I'm guessing people just call it "Cardano" for simplicity's sake. The coin operates on an extremely rich set of technologies, and The Foundation itself considers it just a small part of the entire ecosystem. For example, the blockchain technology itself is called OuroBoros and it is a PoS (Proof of Stake) system created by a team of cryptologists. Yeah.

Now, the paper that goes over the basics of OuroBoros and demonstrates efficacy (also being 'Provably Secure') through experimentation is 65 pages long. Damn. The major idea here is that:

1.) Ouroboros provides greater security than traditional PoS systems. And they can prove it.

2.) they have a "novel reward system for incentivizing proof of stake protocols". Cool.

3.) They basically mathematically proved how to get people to not be dicks (like selfish mining/staking/whatever) using game theory. Something about a Nash Equilibrium. As in John Forbes Nash. This is literally some "Beautiful Mind" Shit.

4.) I did not nearly learn enough math in college.

It is interesting, and there are several more papers that go over additional implementations of Ouroboros. In a nutshell, they are REALLY ADVANCED PoS. That's the takeaway here.

But What About The Coin?

Now, for all the shit I could find about the tiny little bits and pieces regarding Cardano and its technologies, I had to actually go to CryptoSlate to get the financials. Coingecko also has the Ticker Widget, so that's great:

They have about 25 BILLION ADA in circulation as well as a pretty respectable market cap of nearly 2 Billion as of this writing. The volume is pretty formidable, but I wouldn't say the best. During the Launch, ADA had a HUGE spiked price, but it had gone down considerably and now pretty closely stays between 0.04 USD to 0.08 USD. It's relatively "stable", for a crypto. Maybe that's all the magic junk the scientists put in there. BUT, they're only about maybe a couple years old.

When the Stock to Flow gets pumping after the Halving this year, we might see that this coin along with BTC might see a jump in value. This is of course not financial advice, but I mean If I wanted to get into a nice stake-able coin on the relatively cheap, I might go with them. I feel that would be speculation, since it would take a lot more to get a good informed grasp.

What Do I Think?

Well, It's a mixed bag from me. I barely scratched the surface and that was NOT for a lack of trying. I would definitely imagine if a new investor wanted to look into Cardano, it would be a daunting task. Their coin is based on a very scientific mindset (not a bad idea), but I imagine it would be really inaccessible to a lot of folks. This isn't the coin you show your grandma to get her interested in Crypto. It's the coin you share with your fellow computer science PhD candidate friends. In my opinion, that's a wee bit of a problem for mass adoption. They need a better front. Think pharmaceutical companies. They don't drop their pants and start talking Organic Chemistry with their investors like it's pillow talk. That's too much.

If the science pans out (much of this shit is peer reviewed in respected journals), then it could in fact be the superior coin. Something of reliability and economic interest. I think they're doing important work, and honestly it would be cool to have crypto seen as an academic study. That might produce more progress, as long as they are able to implement in practice, as well as principle. That seemed to be the issue with the Pi Network.

Any case, thank you SO SO much for following me through this. I know this is just a taste of the Crypto, and I encourage my readers to learn more about it.

AND if you want an easy way to earn a little extra crypto and help me out for FREE, please consider becoming my referral for the app FREE LITECOIN! They pay out like ClockWork Every Monday/Tuesday. I personally wish I could spread the little pieces of Litecoin out on my bed and roll around in them.

Until next time... Keep your eye on the markets, and think harder. Don't let Cardano hog all the brain power.