Introduction
With the anticipated launch of the first fully-functional beta decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Cardano blockchain on Thursday 20th January, it’s time to take a closer look at Cardano, its technology, and the most innovative and ground-breaking projects that are currently developing and planning to launch on its ecosystem.
What is Cardano?
Cardano is a 3rd generation, proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain project that was developed to overcome the issues associated with the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism. It was founded by Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum.
Cardano is the only major blockchain that has yet to deploy decentralized applications (Dapps). This is due to the Cardano team’s focus on submitting research papers for peer evaluation by professors and specialists in the fields of cryptography and blockchain. The logic being is that everything must be properly studied on the basis of real science before implementation.
Approach
source: iohk.io
Cardano’s white paper was the first blockchain publication to be peer-reviewed by a group of academic specialists and researchers in the domains of blockchain and cryptography from a number of prestigious institutions. It implies that a thorough strategy is in place to prevent future problems. As a result, Cardano stands out for its distinctive features:
Ouroboros is a permissionless consensus mechanism based on Proof of Stake (PoS). It distributes network control across stake pools. A stake pool is assigned as the slot leader, and is rewarded for adding a block to the chain. ADA holders have the option of delegating their stake to a specified stake pool. When the aggregate stake of a stake pool exceeds a specific level, rewards become constant, making that stake pool less appealing because stakeholders are not maximizing their returns. This encourages significant amounts of distribution and currently there are over 2,500 stake pools. One might argue that Cardano is the most digitally distributed PoS network in the world.
Hydra is a game-changer scalability solution for Cardano, which means Transaction Per Second (TPS) can be up to 1 million.
Quantum Resistant Cardano uses SHA-256 cryptographic hash function, which is widely considered to be one of the most secure against attack by quantum computers.
However, the network’s success is determined by the benefits it provides to a larger global population. Let’s have a look at what Cardano projects have to offer. We have shortlisted, in our opinion, the most groundbreaking projects launching on the Cardano blockchain.
The Most Promising Cardano Projects.
EMPOWA — DeFi Enabled Affordable Housing In Africa
source: empowa.io
The first Cardano property platform that blends cutting-edge technology, environmentally friendly construction, and financial inclusion.
84% of Africans live without a permanent roof over their heads. This equates to almost a billion individuals. In Africa, there is a severe housing scarcity. There is now a need for 50 million dwellings. Empowa makes it possible for local partners to work on this massive backlog.
As an example, in a country with a population of over 30 million people, Mozambique has 600 mortgages. The interest rate on a mortgage can be as high as 32%.
Empowa intends to increase the availability of home ownership by enabling decentralized finance alternatives, using Empowa token. In few words, those who contribute to Empowa’s decentralized real estate development by purchasing tokens, will secure a cut of future income from the properties built.
Thanks to Empowa, EasyHousing has already gotten funding for the pilot project in Beira, Mozambique by the Cardano community, with the first inhabitants to move into the pilot homes this month — see below.
MELD — Banking Stack for DeFi
MELD is an open-source, non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows users to borrow fiat (USD and EUR) against crypto collateral while also earning interest on their deposits.
Users connect with the MELDapp on iOS, Android, and in the browser to quickly access their digital assets in order to lend, borrow, and administer MELD’s services. Users get peace of mind since they always have access to their assets (as they keep the keys).
Users may borrow fiat money by putting their cryptocurrencies as collateral in the MELDapp. When KYC is completed, a wire transfer is sent to the customer’s preferred bank. When a loan is paid off, the smart contract expires, causing the collateralized cryptocurrency to be released. The MELDapp controls the entire process.
MELD is the first decentralized protocol to integrate fiat loan capabilities into the crypto environment, which sets it apart from many other DeFi apps.
VERITREE — Climate Solutions Platform
The world’s first on-the-ground monitoring technology for the highest quality restoration projects, Veritree captures real time information directly from planters.
Veritree is a blockchain-based platform that verifies data from planting locations, tokenizes trees to prevent double counting, and leaves a permanent record, providing project sponsors with the transparency they need to be confident in their contributions.
Veritree is the first fully integrated platform that allows users to view and follow their trees as they grow, thanks to a unique, trackable tree code that comes with each tree planted.
Veritree makes it simple for companies and individuals to take the lead in combating climate change, while also creating employment and benefiting the environment for years to come.
To tackle climate change, Samsung has recently partnered with Veritree.
ATALA PRISM — Digital IDs
Atala PRISM is a Cardano blockchain-based decentralized identification solution. It ushers in a new era of identity management in which people own their identities and have total control over how their personal data is used and accessed.
Atala Prism has the ability to revolutionize the world and attract billions of people worldwide. It facilitates the creation of digital identities and credentials that users may quickly, securely, and privately own, manage, and share. Credentials may be verified quickly from anywhere, eliminating the need for third-party verification services.
Atala PRISM is intended for use by corporations, governments, and people. Businesses can enroll new consumers fast, decrease compliance risks and expenses, and provide seamless user experiences. Governments can create digital IDs that allow for immediate access to public and private services. Individuals own their identities and data, and they have control over how their personal information is used and accessed.
Centralized digital identification systems are vulnerable to a variety of threats, including identity theft, data breaches, data harvesting, and fragmentation. Atala does not own or manage any data; rather, all data is securely kept and encrypted on the user’s smartphone. Each individual is the only one who has access to it via biometrics or a PIN code.
Furthermore, even before Atala PRISM debuted on Cardano, it began on-boarding government organizations, with Georgia being one of them.
source: twitter
ARDANA — DeFi Protocol With A Positive Social Impact
source: ardana - youtube
Ardana is a decentralized stablecoin hub, whereby users would be able to borrow Cardano’s stablecoin (dUSD), pegged 1:1 to US dollar, against locked collateral powered by Cardano’s speed, scalability and security. This will be made possible by two key features: the stablecoin and Danaswap (DEX).
Anyone may generate dUSD without selling their assets by using ADA as collateral for a stablecoin loan. According to Statista, there are presently over half a million wallet addresses containing ADA, indicating that DeFi activity on Ardana may increase dramatically on launch.
What distinguishes it, is the Ardana Stake Pool Alliance (ASPA), which carefully selects the top stake pool operators. Anything from family-run operations like ‘Den Ada Pool’ to non-profit organisations like ‘FasoPool,’ which is on a mission to donate their daily stake pool operation proceeds to the Barka Foundation, which helps the local population in Burkina Faso, or ‘StakeForNature,’ where 50% of proceeds go to supporting environmental organisations around the world.
No other DeFi operator has ever done something like this on that scale.
dHealth Network — Health To Earn
dHealth Foundation is a not-for-profit foundation established under the laws of Switzerland. A distributed and community-owned network for healthcare-related transactions that powers a global data-driven healthcare ecosystem. The existing healthcare industry is plagued by both a lack of transparency and interoperability, resulting in many siloed intermediaries, as well as inefficient data access by all stakeholders.
dHealth’s other partners and supernode operators include Novartis, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, the NEM protocol, the University of Basel, the UZH Blockchain Center, and more.
Dr. Eberhard Scheuer, its founder and president, who was a distinguished lecturer at the University of Zurich’s medical school for almost 14 years, stated:
“Both dHealth and our node operators, such as Roche and University of Zurich, firmly believe that Cardano is among the most promising blockchain protocols developed to date”
On of the major elements of dHealth is ‘health-to-earn’. In short, a simple trigger leads to a payout without any manual process in-between — all powered by the public dHealth blockchain, based on rewarding people for healthy behavior, a potential blueprint for Decentralized Autonomous Health Insurance models.
World Mobile — Network Operator to Connect the Unconnected.
Currently, half of the world’s population, or one in every two individuals, is not connected to the Internet. This is because traditional mobile networks won’t connect remote places because it’s too expensive and hard to maintain.
World Mobile is on a mission to fix that via a blockchain technology by building infrastructure for last-mile connectivity using spectrums like free-space optical communication and other radio transmitters, which do not require licensing, translating to less expensive internet access. Because these alternative spectrums do not require licences, they save a lot of money in taxes, which translates to cheaper internet for subscribers.
For sustainability, the air nodes will be owned by private entities, through a one-off fee of about $7,000 that they will recoup over time by earning income or rewards in the form of World Mobile Token (WMT), the operator’s cryptocurrency, as people connect to the internet through their access points. The network operator is working with micro-lenders in financing entrepreneurs to buy the nodes.
World Mobile consists of a 36-person team who has worked together for over a decade, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in VC, while building and exiting multiple 8 and 9 figure businesses in the telecoms space. They mean business.
Summary
The Cardano blockchain was built for global reach and penetration, establishing worldwide consensus on transactions in seconds and attracting individuals from various economic backgrounds. With such weight on their shoulders, Cardano has always practised “measure twice, cut once” approach. As a result of that, the blockchain’s starting ‘settings’ are now set conservatively.
Given the size of Cardano’s community and the excitement around the initial DEX launch, the initial demand surge is expected to cause network congestion and lengthier order processing times, but this will be transitory and the network will gradually settle down. Cardano intends to undertake a number of planned improvements and enhancements to grow network capacity into 2022. Increases in block size and Plutus script memory units are included. Other optimizations and enhancements are in the pipeline, which will boost throughput and allow for longer-term parameter increases.
It’s important to think long-term, because Rome wasn’t built in a day.
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by Wheatstones, and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions.