The "Ethereum of Japan" just leapt past IOTA to become the #6 largest cryptocurrency in the world with a new market cap of $10.4B.
For those who haven't been keeping up with the markets, the past few weeks have been a major boom for cryptocurrencies. First Bitcoin cracked $10K, then flew past it to $15K, now maintaining at $19K after the launch of bitcoin futures trading on Cboe. Litecoin grew 333 percent in just five days, then Ripple surged 84 percent in a day, and then TRON surged 500 percent over the course of a week—and has grown an additional 110 percent since the time of that writing.
Today, another coin made major market moves: ADA coin.
What is ADA?
ADA is the coin of Cardano, and while ADA might seem like it's appearing out of thin air to those who are just getting started with Bitcoin or Litecoin, Cardano has actually been around since 2015. It's a decentralized, fully open-source blockchain project that extends beyond ADA. It's was established by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum, when he partnered with the Cardano Foundation.
Those familiar with Ethereum will recognize the term "smart contract." For readers who don't, check out this primer. Cardano aims to become an advanced smart contract platform—having invented a new Proof-of-Stake (POS) method called Ouroboros—offering more robust features than Ethereum and other protocols. So ADA coin, the cryptocurrency of the Cardano network, purports to offer deeper functionality—while also functioning quickly, efficiently, and cheaply (like Litecoin) and offering the same kind of 'store of value' we see in Bitcoin. All in one coin.
Cardano is sometimes called the "Ethereum of Japan" because 95% of the participants in the ADA Initial Coin Offering (ICO) were Japanese, but it's known more for its heavily research-based approach consisting of "a global team of scientists and academics who have meticulously studied the blockchain space and what makes a coin successful."
At 5:14pm PST Dec. 15, ADA sold for $0.20636, according to CoinMarketCap. By 2:54pm PST today, that number was $0.447912—more than doubling in price. At the time of this writing, the price is $0.40251.
Cardano is also behind Daedalus wallet, a wallet for ADA coin, but with plans to support more in the future. For a deeper dive into Cardano, check out this piece in CryptoSlate and Cardano's post titled, "Why we are building Cardano."