The Cardano blockchain network was launched in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, Ethereum co-founder and a software developer from Hawaii, and has quickly gathered backing from a loyal community. The goal of the platform is to provide an ecosystem for the entire cryptocurrency industry.
One of the biggest developments enroute to this goal was the launch of the smart contract capabilities on the network. The upgrade was named after Joseph Goguen, an American computer scientist whose work is seen as a source of inspiration for what is known as the “K framework” and the eventual creation of smart contracts.
In April, Cardano’s parent company IOHK partnered with the Ethiopian government to expand and develop the country’s education system via blockchain. On Sept. 12, IOHK triggered the most important development for the platform in 2021. The network entered into its Goguen era by launching support for smart contracts on Cardano’s mainnet via a hard-fork update called Alonzo. Implementation was rough, with DeFi projects crashing and ADA’s price dropping as a result.
Hoskinson, however, viewed this struggle as a good thing, tweeting that “it’s pretty easy to win when you’re being underestimated and ignored. It’s actually the greatest gift we could get.” The network successfully added over 100 smart contracts in the next 24 hours. While Cardano reached its 1-million-wallet milestone on May 22, in November, the Cardano Foundation announced that there were more than 2 million wallets.
Grammy Award-winning EDM DJ Paul Oakenfold is currently working to release his upcoming full-length album, Zombie Lobster, on Cardano. The album is part of a partnership with the Starship Universe NFT project, aiming to launch thousands of NFTs on Cardano. Shortly after news of this partnership, Emurgo, a founding entity of Cardano, revealed it would invest $100 million into the project to fund DeFi and NFT startups within the network. Meanwhile, another artist that goes by the name of “BT” will also be launching an album on Cardano, and has already released a series of NFTs.
Cardano’s ambitious roadmap will surely continue, as the Cardano team will be expected to tweak and update features as they see fit in order to ensure a smooth Goguen era. The project implemented smart contracts in 2021 and will improve upon its Hydra scaling and Voltaire governance protocols in 2022. As Cardano’s layer-2 scaling solution, Hydra intends to speed up the network by processing transactions in off-chain staking pools called “Hydra nodes.” Ideally, each Hydra node will process 1,000 transactions per second.
With Cardano’s technological improvements moving along steadily, the Cardano Foundation and its founder will most likely focus more on the network’s expansion to African countries. In October 2021, Hoskinson claimed that 5 million Ethiopian students will receive educational credentials via the Cardano network.
Ethiopia is only one stop on Hoskinson’s tour of Africa, however. The founder is meeting with higher-ups in other countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Zanzibar and Burundi. Hoskinson will likely meet with various Cardano-centric startups within the continent, many of which received funding from Emurgo. He plans to provide whatever support these developer groups need to succeed in their vision.
Finally, IOHK partnered with the World Mobile Group, a blockchain-based mobile network, to provide decentralized services such as internet and energy to African countries. The partnership’s first movements provided solar-powered energy to a village in Tanzania and will utilize Cardano to offer internet services as well. These services will likely expand both in offerings and accessibility throughout 2022.
Tech
