Cardano is a decentralised public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is fully open source. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach. The development team consists of a large global collective of expert engineers and researchers.
Cardano uses a new proof of stake algorithm called Ouroboros, which determines how individual nodes reach consensus about the network. The algorithm is a crucial part of the infrastructure that supports the Ada cryptocurrency and is a major innovation in blockchain technology. Ouroboros eliminates the need for an energy-hungry proof of work protocol, which stands as a barrier to blockchain scaling up for much wider use. The level of security demonstrated by Ouroboros compares to that of Bitcoin’s blockchain, which has never been compromised.
What is Proof Of Stake?
In proof of work, miners invest computing power to compete to be chosen as the leader who gets to make the next block and win a reward for doing so. By contrast, in proof of stake, the stakeholder who will form the next block is randomly selected, proportionally to the size of the stake that they have, according to the blockchain ledger.
“Proof” means having evidence that blocks of transactions are legitimate. “Stake” means the relative value held by addresses on the node. “Relative value” is all the value held by wallets on a particular node divided by total value in the system.