Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, in 2015.It is overseen by the Cardano Foundation based in Switzerland.
Cardano is the first cryptocurrency to be powered by using mathematical principles and peer-reviewed research . It has a multi-layer architecture that separates the settlement layer from the computation layer
Cardano has a fixed supply of 45 billion ADA tokens, of which about 32 billion are currently in circulation. The tokens were distributed through an initial coin offering (ICO) that raised $63 million between 2015 and 2017
Cardano debuted with a market cap of $600 million in 2017. By the end of 2017, it had a market cap of $10 billion, and reached a value of $33 billion briefly in 2018 before dropping back to $10 billion . As of December 2021, it has a market cap of over $40 billion and ranks as the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap
Cardano is undergoing a series of upgrades called “eras”, each named after a historical figure or concept. The current era is Shelley, which focuses on decentralization and staking. The next era is Goguen, which will introduce smart contracts and native tokens
Cardano supports interoperability with other blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin through sidechains and bridges. It also aims to provide identity management and governance solutions for various sectors such as education, health care, and finance.