What is Cardano? Cardano is a public, open-source proof-of-stake blockchain designed for payments, smart contracts, decentralized applications, tokenization, digital identity, and community-directed governance. Its native cryptocurrency is ADA, which is used for transaction fees, staking, transfers, and participation in network governance.
How Cardano works
Cardano uses the Ouroboros proof-of-stake consensus protocol. Instead of mining, stake pools produce blocks according to the amount of ADA delegated to them. Holders can delegate without transferring custody of their coins, while pool operators run the infrastructure that validates transactions and maintains the blockchain.
The network uses an extended unspent transaction output model, or eUTXO. This expands the Bitcoin-style UTXO design with datums, validator scripts, redeemers, and transaction contexts. The result is a transaction model in which application conditions can be evaluated before submission, providing predictable execution. Cardano also supports native assets at the ledger level, allowing tokens and NFTs to be issued and transferred without a separate contract for basic movements.
Plutus is Cardano’s principal smart-contract platform and uses Haskell-influenced programming concepts. Its execution costs are controlled through transaction budgets. The architecture creates a trade-off: eUTXO can make application behavior deterministic, but developers must manage transaction-input coordination differently from account-based blockchains.
Cardano’s roadmap is divided into five named eras: Byron for the initial network, Shelley for staking decentralization, Goguen for smart contracts and native assets, Basho for scaling, and Voltaire for governance.
Primary uses and real-world applications
ADA supports peer-to-peer payments, exchange settlement, network fees, staking, and governance. Cardano also hosts decentralized exchanges, lending applications, stablecoins, liquidity protocols, NFT collections, and other tokenized assets.
The network has been used as the foundation for digital identity and credentials. Input Output announced an agreement with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education involving Atala PRISM and Cardano for digitally verifiable education records for approximately five million students. The announced initiative does not establish that every intended deployment target was completed or remains active in the same form in 2026.
Cardano’s governance system is another major use case. Project Catalyst has funded ecosystem applications, infrastructure, education, and other community proposals, while the treasury is intended to finance development approved through governance.
Who is behind Cardano and where is it based?
Cardano was started in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, and its mainnet launched in September 2017. Hoskinson founded Input Output, while Wood co-founded the organization and participated in the project’s early development.
Three entities were associated with Cardano at its creation. Input Output Global, commonly called IOG, is the research and engineering organization responsible for much of the protocol’s software and infrastructure. Its public materials describe it as a decentralized, remote-working company, and available records identify Input Output Global, Inc. as incorporated in Wyoming, United States.
The Cardano Foundation is a Swiss not-for-profit organization based in Zug, Switzerland. It promotes and protects Cardano as public digital infrastructure and works on ecosystem development, standards, policy, education, and adoption. EMURGO is the commercial and venture-oriented founding entity. It is headquartered in Singapore and supports investment, education, commercial adoption, and enterprise applications.
Tokenomics and supply
Cardano has a maximum and total supply of 45,000,000,000 ADA. The circulating supply is 37,535,193,929 ADA. At the market snapshot captured on 1 October 2026, ADA was priced at $0.246, with a 24-hour change of +0.65%. Its market capitalization was $9.23B (rank #20), and 24-hour volume was $614.18M.
The initial distribution included 25,927,070,538 ADA from public sales, alongside allocations of 648,176,761 ADA to the Cardano Foundation, 2,074,165,644 ADA to EMURGO, and 2,463,071,701 ADA to IOHK. The initial public sales took place in Asia between September 2015 and January 2017.
Not all ADA was circulating at launch. The remaining reserve is released gradually through a monetary-policy system that combines transaction fees with a fixed portion of the remaining reserve. Part of the resulting rewards pot goes to the treasury, while the rest is distributed to stake-pool operators and delegators. Because the reserve declines over time, reserve-based issuance follows a disinflationary path and cannot push supply beyond the 45 billion maximum.
Scaling, governance, and development
Hydra is Cardano’s layer-2 framework, using state channels called Hydra Heads for off-chain transactions with main-chain settlement. Mithril uses stake-based cryptographic signatures to authenticate blockchain snapshots, supporting faster node synchronization and lightweight clients.
CIP-1694 provides the framework for on-chain governance. The Chang hard fork on 1 September 2024 activated the Conway era and began implementing that system. The Plomin hard fork on 29 January 2025 added delegated representatives, or DReps, and expanded governance actions covering protocol updates, treasury withdrawals, constitutional matters, and future hard forks.
Development in 2026 has focused on the Node v11 upgrade, the planned Dijkstra era, Plutus tooling, Leios and Peras scaling research, Hydra releases, and Mithril zero-knowledge infrastructure. The Musashi Dojo testnet became the first live test network for Ouroboros Leios on 23 June 2026. The ecosystem also includes Midnight, a privacy-focused partner chain built around selective disclosure and zero-knowledge technology.
Cardano’s distinguishing features are its research-led development, formal engineering methods, proof-of-stake security, eUTXO determinism, native asset support, capped supply, layered scaling strategy, and expanding on-chain governance. These choices provide a structured and verifiable architecture, but they also require specialized development practices and can make upgrades more deliberate than on faster-release networks.