Cardano Vs Ethereum: Which Is Best?

Cardano Vs Ethereum: Crypto fans have a lot of options – specifically, though, they have two big names in cutting-edge smart contract blockchains to think about. Ethereum and Cardano are both big movers in the crypto space right now, and they have a specific relationship to each other that you should know about if you’re looking to invest in either of these hot cryptocurrencies. There’s a history that will inform where these coins go in the future.

What Is Cardano?

Cardano is one of the most interesting new “altcoins” or alternative cryptocurrencies being talked about by people in the financial space who are interested in crypto investing.

It was developed in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, who was previously involved in creating Ethereum itself.

In fact, to understand what Cardano is, you need to understand that it’s based on Ethereum blockchain technology in some ways. Some experts describe it this way – if Bitcoin is the first generation blockchain, Ethereum is the second generation and Cardano is the third generation.

However, Cardano did not split or “fork” off of Ethereum or any other coin – its blockchain is being built from scratch.

Cardano also has some specific design elements, including the Ouriboros proof of stake consensus model, which we’ll talk about a little later, and two layers. There is a ledger layer, the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) that handles record-keeping, and the Cardano Computing Layer (CCL) that actually implements the smart contract.

When you’re thinking about two-layer blockchains, though, it’s important to distinguish between this type of technology and blockchains that operate a second layer to increase liquidity on a network.

What Is Ethereum?

Since Cardano is based on Ethereum, let’s talk about a little bit about what Ethereum is.

Ethereum was developed for a specific kind of blockchain smart contract functionality. It developed sort of alongside Bitcoin, again, as the second-generation version in blockchain development.

Ethereum started to become popular in designing different kinds of smart cities technologies, payment and transaction mechanisms, and more.

Also, to go back to the proof of stake models, Ethereum recently upgraded to a version 2, where it’s also using a consensus proof of stake model that will be similar to what Cardano is building.

Difference Between Cardano and Ethereum

Again, Cardano is the newer generation of smart contract technology that rivals Ethereum’s more established design. Groups like Consensys built around Ethereum to offer practical implementations for the marketplace and that’s part of why you see Ethereum’s coin value rising into the thousands of dollars where it started out in the low hundreds.

In other words, people have generally considered Ethereum to be the runner-up to Bitcoin in terms of big cryptocurrencies. Cardano, by contrast, is still very small and in the early stages of development.

Will Cardano Kill Ethereum?

People call Cardano, with its token, ADA, the “Ethereum killer” – in this nickname, there is the suggestion that this newer technology with its different proof of stake mechanism is going to eclipse Ethereum as the most popular smart contract handler, or that other cryptocurrencies are going to become obsolete based on the utility of Cardano’s development model.

So let’s talk a little bit more about Ouriboros.

In designing the Ouriboros proof of stake model, Cardano makers combined two things. First there is the verification consensus process that makes transaction processes automated, and gives Cardano the potential to be cheap, fast and scalable in future blockchain implementations, as it, so to speak, “goes to market.”

Then there’s the staking mechanism, where people can put their cryptocurrency into a certain wallet situation, or “pledge” it to a given use, and get interest or dividends, or however you want to term staking rewards.

Cardano makers put both of these things together – so when people stake their Cardano, it contributes toward that consensus proof of stake model.

Is Cardano or Ethereum a Better Investment?

There’s a lot more to learn about this, but the bottom line is that Cardano promises to be fast, cheap and scalable, although Ethereum is faster right now.

People who view Cardano as the “Ethereum killer” are predicting that Cardano is going to develop to the point where it’s going to be more popular functionally than Ethereum is right now.

Will Cardano Go To $100?

This is an interesting question based on Cardano’s past chart history.

First of all, although there’s a lot of noise being made about Cardano’s current position above one dollar, Cardano has been at one dollar before – at the end of 2017. Directly after its origin, Cardano rose to over a dollar before slumping back down to be valued at a few cents for several years. Then at the end of 2021, we saw Cardano rise to something like $0.35, and then to a dollar early this year, and then upward.

That signifies that Cardano can rise dramatically in price, but naysayers point out that moving that coin’s value to $100 would require a market of several billion dollars, which may not be reasonable to expect.

On the other hand, lots of people didn’t think that Ethereum would reach a per-coin value of $4,000 either, which we’ve already seen, and that spurs certain kinds of predictions based on the changing landscape of the crypto scene.

In other words, we have defined proof, in the per-coin values of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, that increases of 500%, 1,000% and more are not unprecedented or wildly unreasonable in this market, especially for coins that started out at a few cents. Dogecoin presents another interesting growth case.

Here’s the bottom line on whether Cardano or another cryptocurrency will rise hundreds of times in price. That price increase has to do with a common purpose for implementation. If the market settles on a particular coin as the blockchain smart contract leader, you can expect to see monumental increases for that particular coin or token value.

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The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.