Cardano is a public, open-source blockchain for building and running smart contracts and other decentralized protocols. The project was built from the ground-up by a team led by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum. In contrast to many blockchains, Cardano did not kick off with a white paper. But it was the first blockchain to be peer-reviewed and developed by academic experts in the field.
2. Blockchain technology before Cardano
Hoskinson and others have been quite vocal on the shortcomings of the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.
Bitcoin was created to eliminate a central authority in verifying transactions. Due to its simple design, it was very secure. But the Bitcoin blockchain was not modifiable and has few uses outside payments. Bitcoin is now referred to as a first-generation blockchain
Ethereum is commonly called a second-generation blockchain. Ethereum was created in 2015 as a platform for deploying smart contracts and decentralized apps. This enabled users to exchange money, property, shares, or anything of value in a clear, conflict-free way and still eschewed the need for a central authority. But Ethereum has run into such problems as high gas fees and scalability.Cardano is part of the so-called third generation in blockchain technology, which includes platforms like Polkadot and Cosmos. Aside from scalability, third-generation platforms like Cardano also seek to address interoperability and sustainability issues that plagued the earlier generations.