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Cardano

Getting Started Guide - A newbies guide to Cardano and the Cardano subreddit
r/cardano

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.


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Welcome!

A warm welcome from the Cardano community. If you're new to crypto or Cardano, you're in the right place!

This post will kick start your learning and help you become an informed community member. Please do no post until you have familiarised yourself with the information provided here. It's highly likely your question is already answered here if you're new.

We expect you to be able to help yourself and others by referring to the information here and using the sub's search - please do not expect to be spoon fed basic information!

This post will help you understand:

  • how to stay safe from scams

  • how to use this subreddit and help yourself - which in turn with help keep the quality of posts to a high standard

  • understand the subreddit rules

  • learn where to buy ADA

  • learn how to store and stake your ada, which wallet to use etc

  • learn how to select a stake pool, understand fees and rewards

Subreddit Purpose

The purpose of this post is to inform you about the Cardano project and tips on how to stay safe within the Cardano ecosystem. We want to make sure that every member of our community is up to date regarding Cardano news and updates and receive the best education about their online (crypto) security and safety. We hope that you find the following information useful to get you started and that everyone in our community enjoys their time here.

Please help us make the community a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. Please read the community code of conduct.

Searching the Sub for Answers

Before you make a post, be sure to get in the habit of searching previous posts first.

To search the subreddit, observe the reddit search bar at the top of the page:

The reddit search bar

Enter your search query, in this case 'staking'. Once you've made the search, you'll see the option to 'show results from r/Cardano', make sure you click this button (outlined in red below):

Be sure to click the 'show results from r/Cardano' button

On mobile, searching the subreddit you're browsing should happen automatically!

Complementary Cardano Subs

r/Cardano is our main subreddit, but we also have several complementary and community run subreddits in order to help maintain flow of information and adhere to the subreddit rules (outlined later in this guide):

r/Cardano_ELI5 The 'explain like I'm five' subreddit is for newbie questions (how to buy, how staking works, fees etc). Posts explain in detain and in laymans terms the various Cardano and blockchain related topics. Please make sure you read the guidelines on this sub, as it has a very particular format.

r/CardanoDevelopers Everything Cardano developer related. If you're planning on building in the ecosystem, you'll want to join this sub.

r/CardanoStakePools Here you can also learn all about running a pool and get more insight into the pools in the ecosystem. Stakepool advertisement is not allowed on the main sub, so if your an stake pool operator, you'll want to market your pool on the stake pools subreddit.

r/CardanoTrading + r/CardanoMarkets We only allow market discussion in our daily thread on the main sub. If you're more interested in price discussion, the trading subreddits are a better alternative.

r/ada_meme We don't allow low value content like memes on this sub, instead visit this one.

This guide is split up into sections, each section is paired with a comment command (explained below). Please make use of these commands on the subreddit as an aid to help and inform yourself and others.

Comment Commands

Comment command: ?help

Typing one of the following commands in a comment will have the auto-moderator provide information on the relevant topic:

Command Topic
?help,?commands Shows this menu
?start, ?newbie, ?newb Refers to the getting started post.
?social Reference to the Cardano social channels
?dyor,?learn A list of resources to learn about Cardano
?essential,?ecosystem The Cardano essential list
?buy,?exchanges Where and how to buy ADA
?wallets Where and how to store ADA
?staking Staking information
?pools,?stakepools Resources to compare stake pools
?fees,?poolfees Deposit and pool fee information
?rewards,?earn Information on earning ADA
?scams Scam and safety information
?support Technical support
?devs Some developer resources
?360,?Cardano360 Cardano 360 monthly show info
?vote,?catalyst,?voting Cardano Catalyst Voting info
?rules An overview of the sub's rules
?rule# (where '#' = 1-7) Detailed description of a particular rule

Do Your Own Research

Comment command: ?dyor

Here are some resources to help you learn about Cardano.

Why Cardano? The original essay from 2017 outlining the background, philosophy and inspiration behind the Cardano blockchain. By Charles Hoskinson.

The 'Whiteboard video' Charles' overview of Cardano from 2017.

The Island, the Ocean and the Pond Charles' explains the plan for Cardano's developer ecosystem.

Cardano's website Cardano's main entry point.

r/Cardano_ELI5 Cardano's 'explain it like I'm five' subreddit.

Roadmap A overview of the project's different eras.

Charles' youtube/AMAs A information mine. Watch Charles' videos to get the latest insight into the project.

AMA Search For the above.

IOHK's blog posts Articles about the project from IOHK.

Research Papers Feeling smart? See how it all works.

Cardano Updates A technical update tracker.

Development Updates There are monthly development updates at the end of each month.

Project Catalyst Town Halls Town halls are updates on Cardano's Project Catalyst - our governance side of the project.

List of youtube channels A wide selection of Cardano related youtube channels.

The Essential Cardano List

Comment command: ?essential

The Essential Cardano list provides an outline and accompanying map of the Cardano ecosystem and a central library of materials, which includes official IOG, Cardano Foundation, and Emurgo resources, as well as community-generated materials, and a list of active stake pools.

This list is fully open source so we hope that you can help us to grow and fine tune our recommendations to make our list even better. We encourage you to let us know of new content that is being produced by the community, new relationships, new innovations, so that we can add them all to this list and build out the ecosystem.

The list is hosted in the following github repository: https://github.com/input-output-hk/essential-cardano/blob/main/essential-cardano-list.md

Cardano's Social Channels

Comment command: ?social

Here is a long list of Cardano's social channels.

Buying ADA

Comment command: ?buy

If you're not sure where to buy ADA because of your location, try using the sub's search! Likely someone has already asked. Example: searching 'ny' brings up threads to buy in New York.

Storing your ADA

Comment command: ?wallets

Cardano's wallets are:

Daedalus A full node wallet available on desktop.

Lace A native defi browser ext. wallet.

Yoroi A light browser based wallet, and mobile app.

Adalite A light web wallet.

Eternl A light web wallet.

Typhon Wallet A light web wallet.

Flint A defi web/browser ext. and mobile wallet.

Nami Wallet A defi web/browser ext. wallet.

Nufi A defi web/browser ext. wallet.

Lode Wallet A light desktop/mobile wallet.

Begin Wallet A light browser ext/mobile wallet.

Gero Wallet A light browser ext wallet.

Atomic Wallet ⚠️ WARNING Atomic wallet has been hacked. Users should stop using this wallet immediately. Please use existing seed phrases to recover the wallet in a different wallet interface, then, create a new seed phrase and send your ADA over from the recovered wallet to the new wallet.

Read the following r/Cardano_ELI5 posts to understand more about wallets:

Staking

Comment command: ?staking

You can find many comprehensive threads about staking on our 'explain it like I'm five sub' r/Cardano_ELI5.

Some posts regarding staking

There are no risks staking on Cardano!

  • Your ADA is never locked. You're free send your ADA at any time.

  • Your ADA is never moved from your wallet. You will always be in control of your ADA (read the above like 'What does it mean to "stake" your ADA?' to learn more).

  • Your rewards are distributed by the protocol, so there's no possibility they can be withheld by a stake pool.

There is no minimum to stake (though there is a staking key deposit of 2 ADA) and any ADA added to your wallet is automatically staked, including rewards (rewards are compounded). You only need to withdraw rewards if you need to send the ADA out of your wallet.

Stake Pools

Comment command: ?pools

Guides to decide which stake pool to delegate to:

Stake pool comparison sites

The community has built many invaluable tools for you to compare stake pool statistics:

When delegating try to:

  • Support pools that contribute to the community.

  • Use wallets that allow you to select your own pool (like Daedalus and Yoroi).

  • Avoid staking with large entities like Binance (It's bad for decentralisation and therefore the project).

Make sure you visit r/CardanoStakePools!

Staking Fees

Comment command: ?fees

Staking Key Deposit

When you make a delegation, it will cost you 2 ADA for a staking key deposit, plus the standard transaction fee (usually ~0.17 ADA). The key deposit is something you'll get back if you ever undelegate the wallet.

Stake Pool Fees

Pool fees are commonly misunderstood. Firstly let's clarify that pool fees are not a direct cost to you, the delegator! Fees are simply the pools share of rewards when they are distributed.

Fixed fee

This is a set amount of ADA the pool earns (min. 340 ADA). e.g If the fixed fee = 340 ADA: If a a pool earns 20000 ADA, the pool gets 340 ADA, and it's delegators get 19,600 ADA.

Variable fee (aka pool margin)

The variable fee is a percentage of rewards the pool earns. e.g. If the variable fee = 1%: If a pool earns 20000 ADA, the pool gets 200 ADA, and it's delegators get 19,800 ADA.

Note treasury tax not included in examples for simplicity.

When making a delegation try to:

  • Support pools that contribute to the community.

  • Use wallets that allow you to select your own pool (like Daedalus and Yoroi).

  • Avoid staking with large entities like Binance (It's bad for decentralisation and therefore the project).

Make sure you visit r/CardanoStakePools!

Rewards

Comment command: ?rewards

There are 3 incentive mechanisms that allow the community to earn rewards in ADA:

Staking Rewards

Staking is incentivised as it's important for network function as intended. See:

Simply delegate your ADA in a Shelley wallet and you'll earn a passive income!

Note that when you initially delegate, it'll take 15-20 days until you first receive rewards depending on your pool's performance, then every 5 days after (see rewards FAQ).

Your rewards depend on the balance during the epoch snapshot (as detailed in the FAQ). That means:

  • Rewards are compounded - rewards are added to your main balance and thus are captured in the next epoch snapshot which goes through the delegation cycle for increased rewards.

  • Any additional ADA you add to the wallet increases your rewards (again once the balance has been captured in a snapshot and has gone through the delegation cycle).

Community Advisor Rewards

In Project Catalyst you can earn rewards be writing thoughful reviews on proposal projects as a community advisor.

Sign up to the ideascale platform and make sure to read the community advistor guide.

Voting Rewards

Voting is another important part of being a community member, as and ADA holder you hold voting power. Our treasury funds projects proposed on Project Catalyst, and with Voltaire we'll soon be voting on Cardano's Improvement Proposals (CIPS). Voting is incentivised to encourage participation. Be sure to download the Catalyst Voting app on android and ios.

Safety and Scams

Comment command: ?scams

Always be vigilant - especially on Youtube with 'giveaway' scams! (See this post to see what they look like)

  • Never share your recovery seed phrase.

  • Never accept advice via direct messages - scammers will prey on you and talk you out of your money. Ask questions publicly!

  • Never send your crypto to someone promising to send more back (youtube 'giveaway' scam) - See advanced fee scam

  • Always download wallets from a trusted sources, and be aware there are imitation wallets in app stores - if in doubt, ask!

Please read the following articles to stay secure

There is no such thing as Cardano giveaways!

How do I identify cryptocurrency scams?

Tips for staying safe online

Cyber security guidelines for Cardano users

Daedalus security when using computer repair services

Technical Support

Comment command: ?support

We also have a community technical support section on the Cardano Forum.

  • EXCHANGES If you're experiencing issues on an exchange, we ask you please use the exchange's own technical support system.

Note that our subreddit is not the intending place to provide technical support.

Developer Resources

Comment command: ?devs

Be sure to visit our dedicated developers subreddit r/CardanoDevelopers!

The Island, the Ocean and the Pond Charles' explains the plan for Cardano's developer ecosystem.

Cardano updates An activity tracker from the main repositories.

Playgrounds

  • Marlowe A scratch style financial contract web-based environment.

  • Plutus Smart contract web-based environment.

Repositories

Developers site and docs

Social Channels

Funding

Other

Cardano 360

Comment command: ?360

Cardano 360 is our monthly show, where we'll bring you all the freshest news & feature content from across the ecosystem.

Join your regular hosts Tim Harrison & Aparna Jue, along with guests from across the ecosystem with all the latest updates and deeper dives into the Cardano universe.

Join us in Crowdcast as we all watch along, or catch the stream on YouTube!

Where to Watch

  • Crowdcast IOHK on Crowdcast - Participate and chat while you listen!

  • Youtube IOHK on Youtube.

Catalyst Voting

Comment command: ?vote

Project Catalyst is an experiment in community innovation, providing a framework to turn ideas into impactful real world projects.

Project Catalyst’s Ideascale is where the Cardano community’s ideas come to life. Here, users can browse active campaigns, participate in discussions, and put forward their own ideas for feedback and voting from the community.

Got an Idea? Create an impactful proposal and collaborate with the community to develop and refine it.

Voting in Daedalus and Yoroi

Catalyst Mobile Voting App

Use our voting app to choose ideas with impact worth funding. Get rewarded in ada for taking part.

Social Channels

FAQ

  • FAQ IOHK - Catalyst FAQ

NOTE

  • Hardware Wallet Voting is currently not supported for Fund4.

  • Minimum ADA required to vote for fund 4 is 500 ADA.

The Cardano subreddit rules

Comment command: ?rules

  1. Be respectful and polite

  2. Keep the discussions Cardano related and add value

  3. Scare tactics, hype, FUD & fake news is prohibited

  4. No spamming, advertising or low value content

  5. Please use the search prior to posting

  6. Market discussion/trading/shilling posts are prohibited

  7. Introductions must be made in the Daily Thread

To view a particular rule in detail, use the comment command `?rule#` where `#` is the number of a rule.

This post was last updated on 22th May 2023.


Cardano CEO: Cardano is 1.6 Million Times More Energy Efficient than Bitcoin
r/cardano

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.


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Cardano CEO: Cardano is 1.6 Million Times More Energy Efficient than Bitcoin
r/cardano - Cardano CEO: Cardano is 1.6 Million Times More Energy Efficient than Bitcoin



#CardanoAfrica let's gooo
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
#CardanoAfrica let's gooo
r/cardano - #CardanoAfrica let's gooo

Cardano is here to stay.
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano is here to stay.

Cardano is just built differently.
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano is just built differently.

Cardano has been listed on CB Pro!
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano has been listed on CB Pro!
r/cardano - Cardano has been listed on CB Pro!

Mark Cuban bringing awareness to Cardano!
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Mark Cuban bringing awareness to Cardano!
r/cardano - Mark Cuban bringing awareness to Cardano!

Why Cardano will fail
r/CryptoCurrency

The leading community for cryptocurrency news, discussion, and analysis.


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Why Cardano will fail

TVL is growing through the bear - I'm not sure why people think this is a good thing. The total value locked in defi is getting close to the previous all-time high for the chain. How are people expected to use the token if all of them are locked away in dapps?

Utility-focused NFTs are growing in popularity - I miss the days when buying an NFT meant spending thousands of dollars on a jpg. I want expensive PFPs for my Discord and Twitter. Now all the NFTs are focused on increasing defi rewards, fractionalized ownership of mining rigs, telecom networks, real estate, or data analytic tools. I think I speak for all of us when I say I just want expensive pictures again.

Lending/Borrowing protocols are everywhere - Debt isn't a good thing, no matter how much you might want to believe it is. Increasing the ability of the average crypto Joe to get into debt is a dangerous prospect.

There are no wallet drainers - Scammers make up a huge facet of the crypto GDP. Without wallet drainers, these hard-working folks are forced to use social engineering and other labor-intensive tactics to scam their victims. When they don't earn fair wages, what money can possibly trickle down?


I like Charlie Hoshkindad but he's got to fix some of the issues with this chain or it isn't going to make it.



Cardano Ecosystem Pipeline!
r/cardano

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.


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Cardano Ecosystem Pipeline!
r/cardano - Cardano Ecosystem Pipeline!

Cardano has no direction
r/cardano

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.


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Cardano has no direction

Hi,

Holder since 2017, here’s a few thoughts.

First, this forum is dead. There’s no hype, activity or utility. A quick trip to the Solana forum (full disclosure, never owned SOL) shows hundreds of recent posts asking about unique projects. Here, it’s just general chatter of “why Cardano is green” and “Cardano credit cards”. These are talking points from 7 years ago.

Where is the use case? Where is the direction? It seems like thousands of us are just spinning around and chasing our tail trying to figure what this tech will be used for, but nobody here is building.

I understand that this is a long term project. But in 7 years since launch, there’s still not a single company or token with a use case. All we have are AMM exchanges used to swap useless tokens with no liquidity. I’m concerned that without a focus, we’re building an amazing technology without users. Will Voltaire change things?

Edit: Seeing this post blow up and the passion come to the surface is inspiring. I’ve learned that most of Reddit has migrated elsewhere, which is fine. But glad to see many of you are still excited. I’ll be sticking around.


Say you love cardano without out saying you love cardano
r/cardano

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.


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Say you love cardano without out saying you love cardano
r/cardano - Say you love cardano without out saying you love cardano

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!: We can confirm that the #Cardano ‘Mary’ protocol update was successfully applied to the #Cardano mainnet tonight at 21:44:51 UTC via a managed hard fork combinator event. Welcome to the beginning of an exciting new multi-asset era on #Cardano!
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!: We can confirm that the #Cardano ‘Mary’ protocol update was successfully applied to the #Cardano mainnet tonight at 21:44:51 UTC via a managed hard fork combinator event. Welcome to the beginning of an exciting new multi-asset era on #Cardano!


Cardano Ecosystem
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano Ecosystem
r/cardano - Cardano Ecosystem

Will Cardano’s ecosystem overtake Ethereum...
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Will Cardano’s ecosystem overtake Ethereum...
r/cardano - Will Cardano’s ecosystem overtake Ethereum...

Cardano Community is surprisingly mature
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano Community is surprisingly mature

Have mostly had sensible conversation with ADA holders and most seem to be grounded to reality, not expecting anything crazy but realistic goals both in price and its use case.

Also very impressed with how stable the community has been during the mega crash.


It’s been over 11 weeks and there are still no Cardano dapps
r/CryptoCurrency

The leading community for cryptocurrency news, discussion, and analysis.


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It’s been over 11 weeks and there are still no Cardano dapps

Since my first post that was almost 11 weeks ago raising concerns about the “upcoming” dapps on Cardano, there have been no news on this.

I was not only personally insulted in PMs, called a FUDer and an liar by the vast majority of Cardano holders, but was also told that Cardano dapps would be running 1 week after Alonzo Fork and dexes like Sudaeswap and ERGO would be fully functional any “moment” after the Alonzo Fork.

So, are there any news about that?? Did the concurrency problem get resolved? If yes, why are there no functioning dexes on Cardano yet? Can someone from the Cardano community enlighten us please?


12 reasons Cardano can't scale in 2022
r/CryptoCurrency

The leading community for cryptocurrency news, discussion, and analysis.


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12 reasons Cardano can't scale in 2022

This post is a reality check on IOHK's latest investor disinformation campaign: https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2022/01/14/how-we-re-scaling-cardano-in-2022/

Tldr: It's great to see they are starting to acknowledge Cardano's scalability problem, or at least pumping the brakes on their unsubstantiated claims of having solved the trilemma. For the first time, 2021 saw the Cardano community publicly acknowledge some of the limitations of their design that critics have pointed out for years. We've come a long way since IOHK was still pretending this was almost ready to go: https://nitter.net/iohk_charles/status/1287481374224420864

1. BLOCK SIZE/ 2. MEMORY/ 3. STORAGE INCREASES

The bigger the blocks, the higher the memory, and the more storage- the faster the chain. Basically every chain that isn't already run on super computers can increase blocksizes, memory or storage requirements if they are OK with more centralization and less stability. That's the trade off. That's true for Cardano, and it's true for every other chain.

But how much room does Cardano have to increase parameters? Cardano already has pretty much the same blocksize as Ethereum (72Kb vs ETH's average of 80Kb) and dramatic increases in blocksize will decrease the number of people who can afford to run nodes, and it also makes the network more likely to fork. The theoretical max limit is 28x the current blocksize, but that is almost certainly not practically possible, and no one supports increasing it to even half of that (which is about the most that has ever been tested), because increasing the blocksize isn't free. How critical is it for Cardano to maintain as small of blocksizes as possible?

Critical enough that the plan is to only increase in 12.5% intervals when absolutely necessary. The fact that anyone is at all hesitant to increase Cardano's limit when it's 72kb tells you that this isn't a free trade. There is no plan to ever reach max parameters. Edit: they can actually increase the block size OR decrease the block time, but as they both directly factor into block propagation times, either choice produces the same throughput limit. The decision has more to do with which hardware requirements you want to increase.

https://np.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/pf25jk/without_hydra_cardano_probably_wont_be_faster/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

What makes Cardano fundamentally slower than every other chain is how bloated their tx sizes are. We've all heard the sales pitch "And Cardano has native tokens that don't need smart contracts!," but what you didn't get told is that native UTXO txs on Cardano are an average of 500 bytes WITHOUT smart contracts. And that a basic, native tx is larger than the average Ethereum tx WITH smart contracts.

And no, the "And Cardano can combine 20 txs into 1 !" meme doesn't make any difference. The size and speed of each block is all the same regardless of whether you call it 1 tx or 20tx's. The only thing combining txs does is make Cardano significantly cheaper to DDOS.

https://messari.io/asset/ethereum/metrics/network-activity

Native Cardano UTXOs are bigger than the average Ethereum tx, and Plutus smart contracts txs are even bigger that - a lot bigger- like 40x the size of Ethereum smart contracts:

Sundaeswap determined that the Cardano network was their primary bottle neck and measured Cardano's real-world throughput for their smart contracts to be 0.15 TPS. That's 47x slower than a native UTXO on Cardano, 100x slower than an Ethereum tx, and 66,000x slower than a Cosmos and Terra tx. 0.15 TPS is a max of 12,960 txs per day, under ideal conditions... on the entire Cardano chain.

https://sundaeswap-finance.medium.com/expectations-congestion-mainnet-launch-e9da5abfd819

Edit: Sunday swaps medium posts are all offline now. https://web.archive.org/web/20220117005224/https://sundaeswap-finance.medium.com/expectations-congestion-mainnet-launch-e9da5abfd819

Cardano's problem is much bigger than anything that can be fixed with a 2x parameter adjustment. Max parameters will never be implemented, and even then, they would still leave Cardano more than 3x slower than the second slowest L1 chain, Ethereum.

4. Pipe Lining and 5. Input Endorsers

...are great ideas. So why are these still in the research phase? They're promising to deliver a plan that hasn't even been designed yet. Let's assume these get designed and developed in 2022. Then Cardano is in the ballpark of Ethereum L1's low tps and high congestion.

6. Plutus Script Enhancements

These are basic functions (that are still in the research phase because of how they conflict with provability in Hydra). Plutus should not even have been released before they developed reference and data inputs. That was an obvious problem, and it was a huge mistake that will create chaos and disappointment.

Edit: putting something as basic and critical as reference inputs on the roadmap for 9 months after smart contracts are released is the definition of "move fast and break things." Also, nobody has explained how they solved the conflict with provability. They didn't leave it out of Plutus because it's a minor problem: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3dc6zG9EjWE&t=37m30s

Cardano will alway have much larger txs than non-UTXO chains because native UTXOs are so large. On top of that, Plutus' smart contract implementation is extremely bloated and inefficient. The problem is that Cardano's UTXO model can't store smart contracts on-chain. So instead of calling an on-chain smart contract, every Cardano SC tx must include the SC script in every tx, because there is no on-chain SC that can simply be referenced again and again. This makes every Cardano smart contract very large.

Cardano currently does native asset txs (without smart contracts) at 7 TPS, and that's the theoretical minimum SC size, if they figure out how to compress SCs 47x. And that means that Cardano SCs will always be at least twice as slow as Ethereum L1's unbearably slow 15 TPS, for the same blocksize.

Now is a good time to point out that it's clear from their rhetorical focus of comparing their chain to the next slowest chain, that Cardano holders have no idea how slow Ethereum is. Up to this point in time, almost all of Cardano's txs have been basic UTXO's that haven't filled up blocks, because they are a small fraction of the size of smart contracts.

Four months after going live, no one really uses smart contracts on Cardano yet. Muesliswap doesn't even have $100 Million in TVL (and doesn't have $5M in liquidity to other tokens). Small NFT drops did bring the network to a crawl, but we haven't seen speeds across the whole network change dramatically like they will when Sundaeswap launches a real DEX and much bigger txs flood the chain Thursday.

And catching up to Ethereum L1 will not be good enough. Ethereum has L2s already, and nobody would use Eth L1 if it went live for the first time today. Ethereum has the first mover advantage of having all the liquidity. Whales don't care about a $200 fee, they care about liquidity. They need to move in and out of large positions quickly with as little price impact and slippage as possible.

7. Node Enhancements

This is not a scaling solution. Yes, fix your bugs and optimize your code. No other chain thinks a node update is a "scaling solution." This is ridiculous. Let me say this again: Cardano is currently 66,000x slower than Cosmos and Terra.

8. Side-chains

Great idea. But Cardano doesn't have any decentralized side-chains, and they didn't even get serious about funding any until late last summer. Proper sidechains are the real solution. Milkomeda is on the right track with their M1 sidechain. It's an accounts model Solidity EVM sidechain that has 32 permissioned nodes and uses slashing. Congratulations on abandoning all of your stated goals, and rushing to produce something usable. We waited six years so Catalyst could fund BSC 2.0.

https://dcspark.gitbook.io/milkomeda/our-solution-1/the-m-1-sidechain

9. Hydra

A comprehensive plan for interhead Hydra implementation that approaches anything close to a generalized L2 has yet to be described, let alone developed. We're still waiting for a basic description of how isomorphic state channels will ever scale dApps or have any use between untrusted parties. Hydra's 2022 release schedule is for payment channels between trusted parties. Yes, it will be able to handle smart contracts, but not any smart contracts that dApps use. Hydra heads have to be closed every time a party joins or leaves, and they have no known application for dApps. Hydra is really irrelevant, because native UTXO transfers aren't the problem right now.

https://np.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/s18wie/should_cardano_be_prepared_to_abandon_hydra/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

10. Off-chain computing

"Transactions occur outside of the blockchain itself, yet can offer fast, cheap transactions via a trust model."

Brilliant. This is a creative solution. Off-chain trusted computations. Finally something that makes sense. Yes, Cardano users should definitely do their computations somewhere they trust, off-chain... Muhammad Fucking Christ. Let me suggest they do their computations on one of the 79 other L1 blockchains.

Edit: there's a massive difference between off-chain to a trusted party and off-chain to decentralized, trustless rollup or side chain. They are not remotely the same. That's why Sundaeswap had to come up with the convoluted scooper model and Maladex wrote a book detailing their experimental solution to countering the specific vulnerabilities of off-chain code (some of which on-chain verification will never detect). In the YouTube link above, Sebastien from DC Spark says Cardano is years away from having rollups.

11. Mithril

To achieve greater scalability, you need to address the complexity of critical operations that depend logarithmically on the number of participants.

What? This is straight gibberish. Mithril is obviously not a relevant scaling solution. Mithril is a solution to a problem that many other chains don't even have. Even Ethereum can run a trustless lite client for nodes. Wtf does that have to do with how slow Cardano SCs are? Light client nodes don't write blocks in Cardano. Your inability to figure out a trustless lite client is irrelevant right now.

12. Fees

The short term consequence of Sundaeswap's launch will be a DDOS attack. Txs across the entire Cardano network will take days to process. I predict that Sundaeswap will be forced to throttle their volume, so that the rest of the chain is usable. Best case scenario for EOY 2022, Cardano users can expect Ethereum L1 tx speeds, if everything goes right.

And Cardano has another problem they still haven't solved that Ethereum doesn't have. Slow blockchains require high fees, and Cardano doesn't have dynamic fees. Price fixing always creates shortages. They need dynamic fees. There's no way around supply and demand. Everyone has been saying Cardano's fee model wouldn't work for years. IOHK is just now taking the question seriously, and their recent moves on fees makes it clear that they have no idea what they are doing.

People don't pay fees for fun. The fees are the only thing that make Ethereum usable. You can underpay gas on Ethereum and wait days for the tx to go through if you want, but you can't manage Defi positions or even use a DEX without cutting in line to get immediate settlement.

It doesn't matter that txs have a deterministic order. The Cardano chain can't compute every tx (off-chain) and magically update price feeds with future prices, before the blocks are written. Even on Ethereum txs frequently fall outside of reasonable slippage in minutes. The slippage required to guarantee a tx over 24 hrs would regularly be a double digit percentage of the trade amount. And high slippage is especially a vulnerability for Cardano because so many dApps feature some risk of trusted party ordering. Low slippage is a protection against that.

Also, fees are how slow chains keep from getting Ddos attacked (RIP🏴‍☠️ NANO). If less than 13k txs take 24 hours to clear, anyone can completely stop all traffic on the Cardano network for the cost of 13k txs. And they can render it functionally unusable for a fraction of that. The Cardano community has only recently begun to admit that priority fees will be necessary, and their plans for tiered fees are poorly thought out. Search their sub for "fees" and read them blindly trying to reinvent the wheel. This is basic economics, and they have done no real research on it.

For years we were told that the whole point of Cardano was to avoid launching broken products like this. Cardano's reputation will never recover from this "Move slow and break things" for a food DEX (that originally chose to launch on BSC).

ADA was worth more in 2018 than it was worth during its dip last week. What coin do you think ADA holders will have to sell to buy the other half of liquidity pairs to earn rewards on these DEXs? 🤔

Cardano has not been waiting to release better designed, more secure products. Txs that take days was not part of the 4d chess plan. Look at Sundaeswap's audit and the Plutus exploit. It's the same stuff we see on other chains, plus slow txs, plus trusted off-chain elements, plus a roadmap that is critically reliant on problems that are unsolved.

None of these problems are going away in weeks. The problem with Cardano is the complete lack of honesty from leaders and influencers like Charles Hoskinson, who regularly makes false claims, and a culture of over optimism and anti-critical thinking. Their plan isn't going well, and their jobs rely on them not admitting it.


I finally understand the power of Cardano
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
I finally understand the power of Cardano

My brother just gave me his old gaming laptop, didn't ask for anything in return.

I have some ADA so I told him to download Yoroi and just sent him 100 ADA. It took seconds to arrive.

No bank. No VISA. No government. No BACS. No Swift. No cash.

Just me, him and the blockchain.

Fucking. Cool.

Edit: This isn't to say (a) this is Cardano's sole capability; or (b) solely Cardano has this capability - this experience just brought to life my theoretical understanding of the whole project (value, identity, governance) and I thought it was neat enough to share. Peace and love to you.



Cardano Foundation reaching out!
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
Cardano Foundation reaching out!
  • r/cardano - Cardano Foundation reaching out!
  • r/cardano - Cardano Foundation reaching out!

4 out of 6 trending posts on crypto panic are related to Cardano. Long live Cardano
r/cardano

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.


Members Online
4 out of 6 trending posts on crypto panic are related to Cardano. Long live Cardano
r/cardano - 4 out of 6 trending posts on crypto panic are related to Cardano. Long live Cardano

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