Cardano Trading and Brokers 2024

Cardano (ticker ADA) is one of the most interesting decentralised finance (DeFi) projects out there, with Elon Musk even taking to Twitter to show his support. Potentially revolutionising the future of cryptocurrencies, Cardano does away with the proof-of-work standard in favour of a clever proof-of-stake scheme that manages to maintain the decentralisation, security and liveness of Bitcoin and other major cryptos, at a small fraction of the energy requirement. This guide aims to outline the key characteristics of Cardano, its native token ADA and how to start trading it.

Cardano Brokers

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    Founded in 1974, IG is part of IG Group Holdings Plc, a publicly traded (LSE: IGG) brokerage. The brand offers spread betting, CFD and forex trading across an almost unrivalled selection of 17,000+ markets, with a range of user-friendly platforms and investing apps. For 50 years, IG has maintained its position as an industry leader, excelling in all key areas for traders.

  2. XTB

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    Founded in 2002 in Poland, XTB now serves more than 1 million clients. The forex and CFD broker combines a heavily regulated trading environment with an extensive selection of 6400+ assets and a commitment to trader satisfaction, featuring an intuitive in-house platform with superb tools to support aspiring traders.

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    Established in 1989, CMC Markets is a respected broker listed on the London Stock Exchange and authorized by several tier-one regulators, including the FCA, ASIC and CIRO. More than 1 million traders from around the world have signed up with the multi-award winning brokerage.

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    Established in Australia in 2010, Pepperstone is a top-rated forex and CFD broker with over 400,000 clients worldwide. It offers access to 1,300+ instruments on leading platforms MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView, maintaining low, transparent fees. Pepperstone is also regulated by trusted authorities like the FCA, ASIC, and CySEC, ensuring a secure environment for traders at all levels.

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    Eightcap is an award-winning, FCA-regulated broker offering industry-low trading fees. They are also the highest-rated brand by TradingView’s 50 million-strong users, who can trade directly on the platform. UK traders can sign up for a live account with an accessible £100 minimum deposit.

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    eToro is a top-rated multi-asset platform which offers trading services in thousands of CFDs, stocks and cryptoassets. Launched in 2007, the brand has millions of active traders globally and is authorized by tier one regulators, including the FCA and CySEC. The brand is particularly popular for its comprehensive social trading platform. Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in the UK and some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply. 51% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

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    BlackBull is a New Zealand-based CFD broker with trading opportunities on forex, stocks, indices, commodities and cryptos. The broker supports the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms as well as TradingView, cTrader and a proprietary mobile app. Clients can trade with high leverage and tight spreads from 0 pips on the broker's ECN accounts.

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    Founded in 2009, Vantage offers trading on 1000+ short-term CFD products to over 900,000 clients. You can trade Forex CFDs from 0.0 pips on the RAW account through TradingView, MT4 or MT5. Vantage is ASIC-regulated and client funds are segregated. Copy traders will also appreciate the range of social trading tools.

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    Fusion Markets is an online broker established in 2017 and regulated by the ASIC, VFSC and FSA. It is best known for its low-cost forex and CFD trading, although its multiple account types and copy trading solutions cater to a range of traders. New clients can sign up and start trading in 3 easy steps.

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    Founded in 2001, easyMarkets is a multi-regulated forex broker offering leveraged trading opportunities on forex, stocks, indices, commodities and crypto. With fixed spreads, an affordable initial deposit, regulation from several reputable bodies and a diverse selection of account currencies, this broker provides simple and straightforward trading solutions to a diverse range of traders.

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    Established in 2017, Pocket Option is a binary options broker offering high/low contracts on forex, stocks, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. With over 100,000 active users and a global reach, the platform continues to prove popular with budding traders.

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    BitMEX is a crypto exchange and derivatives trading platform, launched in 2014. The firm offers a fiat–crypto onramp, spot trading, and crypto derivatives including perpetual contracts, traditional futures and quanto futures. BitMEX offers amongst the largest market liquidity of any cryptocurrency exchange.

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    Markets.com is a respected broker, offering multi-asset trading opportunities through CFDs or spread betting (UK only). Established in 2008, the brand has an impressive 4.3 million registered customers and is overseen by trusted regulators, including the FCA, ASIC and CySEC. 79.1% of retail accounts lose money.

  14. Axi

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    Axi is a global forex and CFD trading firm, founded in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Highly leveraged trading opportunities plus a $0 minimum deposit make it a popular choice among 60,000+ traders worldwide. Axi also stands out for its resources, including copy trading and Autochartist.

  15. OKX

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    OKX is a respected cryptocurrency firm, established in 2017, that offers a large suite of products, from mining pools to NFTs. Traders can access over 400 crypto tokens via OTC trading and derivatives. With an excellent web platform, developer tools and dynamic charts, OKX is a popular choice for technical traders.

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    PrimeXBT is a multi-asset platform offering highly leveraged trading in forex, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. The company launched in 2018 and now has over 1 million users from more than 150 countries. With no minimum deposit, copy trading features and low commissions, the broker remains a popular option among crypto trading novices.

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    FXTrading.com is global broker offering highly leveraged CFDs on 10,000+ assets, including forex, stocks, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. Competitive prices with raw spreads and low to zero commissions are available. Traders can use the popular MetaTrader 4 platform and will have access to a suite of additional analytical tools and other resources. The multi-regulated brokerage is authorized by the ASIC and VFSC.

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    Ingot Brokers is a multi-regulated brokerage established in 2006. The broker offers CFD trading opportunities on 1000+ instruments including forex, stocks, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. The broker supports the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms and offers both raw spreads and commission-free account options.

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    FinPros is an offshore broker that provides CFD trading on 400+ instruments with high leverage up to 1:500. This is a reliable bet for traders seeking offshore options, with strong security measures, negative balance protection and segregated client funds. The extra features including trading tools and commission-free stocks make this a good choice for beginners, and experienced traders will appreciate tight spreads.

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    Uphold is a digital asset platform offering a range of services, from crypto trading and staking to payment cards that provides rewards and easy multi-currency payments. The company was established in 2015 and has enabled $4+ billion in transactions. Uphold is now active in 180+ countries and deals in 200+ crypto and fiat currencies.

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    Dukascopy is an online broker operated by a Swiss-regulated banking group. It offers a good selection of 500+ markets, with forex, stocks, gold, ETFs, indices, bonds and cryptocurrencies available. It also offers flexible trading opportunities through the choice of CFDs or binary options. Traders will use MetaTrader 4 or a proprietary platform that is well-suited to automated trading.

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    GoFX is an unregulated CFD and forex broker that covers instruments from currency, stock, index, commodity and crypto markets. Traders can sign up to a variety of account types with deposits as low as $1 and will trade using the popular MetaTrader 4 platform. Exceptionally high leverage up to 1:3000 is offered on the standard account, while traders with the low-spread account can access leverage up to 1:1000.

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    Focus Option is an offshore broker that specializes in binary options as well as CFDs. Binary options trading on forex, cryptos and three commodities is done through the broker's simple web-based platform with average payouts between 70% and 95%. The broker also offers a mobile app for trading CFDs, with 300+ tradeable instruments.

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    OspreyFX is an ECN broker headquartered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Established in 2019, the firm offers 120+ forex and CFD assets with high leverage up to 1:500, tight spreads from 0.1 pips and round-the-clock customer support. OspreyFX also stands out for its funded trading accounts where traders can keep up to 70% of profits.

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    Firstrade is a US-headquartered discount broker-dealer with authorization from the SEC. The company is also a member of FINRA/SIPC. With welcome bonuses, powerful tools and apps, plus commission-free trading, Firstrade Securities is a popular online brokerage. It is also quick and easy to open a new account.

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    Revolut has emerged as the most downloaded financial app in 11 countries with over 45 million users and more than $23 billion held in customer balances. It facilitates commission-free trading on over 2000 stocks and commodities, alongside 185 cryptos with a minimum investment of just $1. The mobile trading experience remains market-leading for casual investors seeking low, transparent fees.

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    Kucoin is a crypto exchange that offers trading on 1000+ tokens as well as leveraged trading opportunities via futures and perpetual swaps. This exchange has a slick trading platform that supports robots, allowing traders to implement automated strategies. Other attractive features include a demo account, flexible funding methods and DeFi features like staking and mining.

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    Nexo is a centralized crypto exchange founded in 2018 in Bulgaria and today operates across some 200 jurisdictions from its base in Switzerland. It provides services including spot trading, futures trading, peer-to-peer loans, cold wallet storage and fiat-on ramps to buy crypto tokens. The crypto firm is registered with some respected financial authorities, such as the ASIC, and offers some fairly unique additional services including a credit card.

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    Pionex is a crypto trading platform that specializes in trading robots, offering a variety of ready made bots and strategies to traders as well as integrated AI to help customize a strategy or come up with your own. These can be used on spot crypto markets as well as crypto futures.

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    RoboMarkets is a Cyprus-based forex, CFD and stock broker aimed at traders from Europe. The broker offers thousands of instruments across six asset classes and provides access to four leading platforms, including MetaTrader 4. With ECN pricing, Cent accounts and algorithmic trading tools, RoboMarkets caters to a range of trading strategies and investing styles.

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    Established in 2012, Hong Kong-based Bitfinex is a formidable player in the crypto industry. It boasts a powerful proprietary platform, 180 cryptocurrencies and more than 430 market pairs available for spot or perpetual swaps derivatives trading. With new payment methods, lower entry barriers and fresh products like crypto futures, Bitfinex is attracting a wider range of active crypto traders.

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    Gemini is a cryptocurrency exchange set up in 2014 by the Winklevoss brothers, known for their early involvement in Facebook. The exchange is among the world’s 20 largest and most popular. Gemini clients can trade and stake 110+ cryptocurrencies, with derivatives trading available in some jurisdictions, an advanced proprietary platform and additional features including an NFT marketplace.

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    Kraken is a leading cryptocurrency exchange with a proprietary trading terminal and a list of 220+ tradeable crypto tokens. Up to 1:5 leverage is available with stable rollover fees on spot crypto trading and up to 1:50 on futures. The exchange also supports crypto staking and has an interactive NFT marketplace.

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    ActivTrades is a UK-headquartered CFD and forex broker established in 2001. The brokerage is heavily regulated with licenses from the FCA, SCB, CSSF, BACEN & CVM and CMVM. Over 1000 CFDs are available spanning 7 asset classes. Over 93.60% of orders are executed at the requested price. ActivTraders also offers a selection of leading trading platforms, including MT4, MT5, TradingView and ActivTrader platforms.

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    Swissquote is a Switzerland-based bank and broker that offers online trading and investing. The company has a high safety score and is listed on the Swiss stock exchange. The firm offers a huge range of products, from stocks, ETFs, bonds and futures to 400+ forex and CFD assets. Hundreds of thousands of traders have opened an account with the multi-regulated brokerage. Clients can get started in three easy steps while 24/7 customer support is available to assist new users.

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    SimpleFX is an online broker specializing in CFD and cryptocurrency trading, with multi-currency accounts, STP execution, low pricing and no minimum deposit. Bringing innovation and gaining recognition at numerous industry events since 2014, SimpleFX now caters to retail traders from over 190 countries, boasting a client base exceeding 200,000 active users.

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    Established in 2005 in Australia, FP Markets is an ASIC- and CySEC-regulated broker boasting an extensive suite of tradable assets. Its Standard and Raw accounts cater to traders at every level, while it packs a punch in the tooling department, from the MetaTrader suite and intuitive TradingView to actionable trading ideas from Trading Central and AutoChartist.

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    Saxo Markets is a multi-award-winning trading brokerage, investment firm and regulated bank. With a huge 72,000+ trading instruments, plus investment products and managed portfolios, clients have no shortage of opportunities. The trusted brand also offers transparent pricing and top-tier regulatory protection from 10+ agencies including FINMA, FCA & ASIC.

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    Binance is one of the best-known crypto exchanges. The company is available in more than 180 countries with over 120 million registered customers. The platform offers a suite of crypto trading products, from staking and NFTs to derivatives.

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    Vault Markets is an award-winning brokerage headquartered in Namibia. It is an accessible direct-market-access CFD broker with affordable minimum deposits, flexible funding methods and high leverage. This broker offers a very large range of forex pairs as well as commodities and indices through MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5.

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    Capital.com offer CFDs on a range of markets with competitive spreads and zero commissions. The broker also offers the Investmate app, negative balance protection and leveraged trading.

What Is Cardano?

Cardano is an interesting blockchain platform that uses an Ouroboros proof-of-stake technology backed up by peer-reviewed research. This allows it to maintain similar decentralisation and security standards to other blockchains and cryptos without requiring the energy usage of a small country. The founder of Cardano, Input Output Hong Kong, released Cardano in 2017 and have since seen it grow massively.

What is Cardano

The Cardano network is a flexible and advanced blockchain that provides a strong foundation for application development and technological advancement. As with other blockchains, Cardano has a native token that supports local transactions, called Ada (ADA).

How Cardano Works

Proof Of Stake Vs Proof Of Work

Despite its fame, Bitcoin has received a fair amount of bad press, thanks to its massive energy usage. The reason for this is the proof-of-work philosophy that its blockchain is built on. Bitcoin, along with almost every other cryptocurrency except Cardano, maintains its security by producing additional blocks through the solution of massive, unique computational problems.

Ada is built on an entirely different philosophy called proof-of-stake. Rather than solving big problems to prove the validity of a transaction, Cardano’s blocks are produced by selecting participants to generate new blocks. The selection process uses a cryptographic algorithm called a verifiable randomness function (VRF) that assesses the size of the stakes that different participants, called stake pools, have in the blockchain. Staking rewards participants with some of the Ada that is produced with the new block.

The benefits of proof-of-stake are so clear, especially given the current climate crisis, that its popularity is rising massively. The first proof-of-stake blockchain project, Peercoin, combined both consensus mechanisms to improve the fairness of the mining system and reduce the energy requirements. Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, has also noticed the potential of proof-of-stake and is currently implementing upgrades to move away from proof-of-work.

Environmental Benefits

The approach taken by Cardano to validate transactions and produce new blocks is significantly less damaging to the environment than other cryptocurrencies. This is because it doesn’t take a massive amount of computational power to create a new block, it simply requires staking some capital. This allows the network to run with an energy efficiency four million times larger than Bitcoin.

Twin Layer Structure

The flexibility of the blockchain and the opportunity for application development and network upgrades are facilitated by the double-layered structure of the network. The first layer, the settlement layer (CCSL), carries out transactions across the blockchain using its resident cryptocurrency, Ada. The second layer, the computation layer (CCL), runs Cardano applications and provides access for developers.

How To Start Trading Cardano

Brokers Vs Exchanges

Before you can begin trading Cardano (Ada), you need to decide whether you want to invest by owning some or simply speculate on its price movements.

For those looking to own the crypto and get directly involved with the blockchain, contributing to its demand and development, an exchange allows you to buy and hold the coin itself. When selecting an exchange, pay attention to its security, trustworthiness and fee structures. Some popular crypto exchanges include Coinbase, Binance, Gemini and Kraken.

Investing in Cardano

If you wish to speculate on the price movements of Ada or the success of the Cardano platform, then you need a suitable broker. The quality of crypto brokers can vary massively, so be sure to do your research. Some of the most important things to look out for are FCA regulation, fee structure, security and trading platform. Some of the most popular brokers for cryptocurrencies are eToro and IG. For more advice, see our crypto trading guide.

Set Up a Digital Wallet

If you have opted to become an owner of Cardano’s Ada, then you will need a digital wallet (e-wallet) to hold the asset, such as a Coolwallet. When selecting a wallet, the most important thing to factor in is security. While people store physical money in safes and bank vaults, relying on physical walls and locks to keep money safe, digital assets sit in an online wallet protected by digital programming. If someone hacks your wallet, your money can all disappear, so finding a trustworthy wallet provider is imperative.

A common solution to this issue is to hold the Ada on a hardware wallet, which is a hard drive or SSD that stores the crypto much like a digital wallet, but that can be removed from a computer. Some of the most popular hardware wallets are the Ledger Nano X, S and the CoolWallet S, all of which support Cardano staking.

Start Trading Cardano

Once set up with a broker or exchange and wallet, you can begin trading Cardano. Investors can simply buy some Ada and store it in their wallet, possibly using it for transactions or staking some in a stake pool for a financial reward.

Speculators can start analysing the price movements of Cardano, using day trading strategies or geometric patterns to inform trades. Alternatively, traders can look at new events and research the market to decide for themselves whether the price may rise or fall.

Becoming A Participant

Cardano is a particularly easy blockchain to become a contributor for thanks to its POS scheme, which lowers the barriers for anyone wanting to get involved. While POW schemes often require large quantities of computing power to contribute, Cardano requires very little and instead takes a small financial stake. These low barriers have led to many people using small, cheap computers like Raspberry Pis and Rock Pis to form a node and contribute to the network.

Pros of Cardano Trading

Reasons to start trading or investing in Cardano include:

  • Decentralised structure
  • Energy efficiency
  • Evidence base
  • Security

Cons of Cardano Trading

Downsides of investing in Cardano include:

  • Currently no smart contracts
  • 51% attack aftermath

Security

Proof-of-work schemes are very secure, which is how they get away with such extortionate energy usages when compared with proof-of-stake systems. The security is mostly provided by the difficulty of carrying out the massive amounts of computational work required to overwrite the legitimate blockchain with a new, longer one. This threat is called a 51% attack and stands to be the largest current weakness of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.

Proof-of-stake schemes have several other weaknesses on top of 51% attack threats. Some of the biggest weaknesses include building a full alternative blockchain history and overwriting the existing one, hijacking the randomness algorithm that selects the creators of new blocks and attacking recently reconnected nodes by providing them with false histories that cannot be verified against recent information.

Cardano safety

Cardano’s unique system stands fast against these threats thanks to its academic approach. Where Bitcoin was set up and existed for years before its security claims were mathematically proven, Cardano precedes the implementation of new technology with fully peer-reviewed theories and systems that confirm its security claims.

The Cardano settlement layer is run using the Ouroboros consensus mechanism, which has twice been updated with new, academically reinforced cryptographic systems. Each upgrade has focused on improving the security and liveness of the blockchain and Ouroboros Genesis, the third implementation, has been mathematically proven to provide security on par with Bitcoin in terms of all the above proof-of-stake weaknesses and the prevention of 51% attacks.

However, Cardano does still fall short against proof-of-work schemes in the aftermath of 51% attacks. The Bitcoin blockchain can be regained by the honest minority by adding extra mining power until the malicious power no longer has a majority. Cardano, on the other hand, cannot be returned to its legitimate group unless the blockchain is forked or the attacker sells their coins.

Price Prediction Tips

Day Trading Strategies

Accurately predicting the future is extremely difficult for all financial instruments, and cryptocurrencies are no different. Fortunately, there exist trading approaches that use technical analysis techniques of live price charts and graph trading indicators. Traders wishing to speculate on the price movements of Cardano may benefit from implementing cryptocurrency day trading strategies like breakout trading, moving average convergence divergence (MACD) and news trading.

Cardano Trading Signals

There are many traders and investors out there who have made successful predictions of crypto markets, making themselves a lot of money. Some of these people will provide trading signals on websites like Telegram and TradingView for others to use to inform their own trading approaches. While these can be very profitable, they can also cause large losses, so be careful and do sufficient research into the profit histories and trustworthiness of different Cardano signals providers.

Cardano Roadmap

The Ada blockchain is being continually improved, with many mathematicians, cryptographers and software engineers developing additional functionality, security and scalability. The Cardano Foundation has released a roadmap that outlines the major development steps that the blockchain must undergo before becoming a fully decentralised, self-sustaining system.

Cardano & NFTs

The next step in Cardano’s roadmap is named Goguen, after the prominent computer scientist. The release of Goguen will launch smart contracts, a long-awaited feature, into the blockchain. Smart contracts are common in the world of cryptocurrencies, supporting additional transactions and dealings beyond simple token transferrals.

One of the most hyped capabilities of smart contracts is the marketplace for NFT trading. Cardano’s Goguen release will lay the foundation for effective and secure NFT support. The first quarter of 2021 is the roadmap’s slated release date of Cardano smart contracts, which means that the release is likely imminent.

The later stages of the roadmap constitute scalability and governance developments, more detail on key dates and upcoming events can be found on Cardano’s website.

Cardano Trading Education

If you are considering trading Cardano and would like more information, price prediction techniques or rewards and staking calculators, there is plenty available online. Cryptocurrency information sites like CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap can provide useful insight into the blockchain’s initial coin offering (ICO), stock/share price, max supply and market cap. For fundamental information and explanations straight from the horse’s mouth, the white paper released by the Cardano Foundation is freely available online.

Cardano learning

There is also a wide range of instructional videos on YouTube giving helpful explanations of Cardano, yield farming, voting and the blockchain explorer. These videos can range in complexity, from simple topics to the resistance of Cardano to quantum computing development’s threat to public-key cryptography.

Forum sites and social media like Yahoo Finance, 4Chan, Discord and Twitter provide general help with the latest news, charts from six months to five years and value predictions over any timeframe, from two years through to ten years. Be wary of any page or PDF claiming a definitive price prediction for 2025, or even 2030, as there are lots of these online and are entirely subjective.

Cardano Trading Verdict

Cardano has generated a lot of buzz recently, especially since Elon’s tweet and its listing on Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange. Couple this with its impressive energy efficiency and strong bull run rising to an all-time high of $1.44 in April 2021, from $0.18 at the start of the year, and you have an encouraging blockchain system that promises to keep improving off the back of peer-reviewed academic research.

To some, this may be enough to begin investing, but you should always be careful when risking your capital. Do as much research as you can to understand Ada and its future potential, be wary of online guides promising specific price movements and always follow robust risk management strategies.

Cryptoassets are highly volatile and unregulated in the UK. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.

FAQ

Is Cardano A Good Buy?

It cannot be definitively forecast that Cardano is a good investment that will grow in worth in the long term. However, Cardano compares very well to other cryptos, like Litecoin (LTC), Polkadot (DOT) and Ripple (XRP), thanks to its strong security levels (for a proof-of-stake blockchain) and impressive energy efficiency.

What Is The Cardano Catalyst Fund 4?

The catalyst fund 4 (successor of fund 3) is a community development programme using Javascript that provides an ecosystem to developers for the creation of dapps and function integration across Cardano’s computation layer.

What Currencies Can I Trade Cardano With?

Cardano can be bought using many different currencies, such as the UK’s pounds sterling (GBP), Australian dollars (AUD) and South African Rands (ZAR). Alternatively, those wishing to speculate on the crypto’s price can find forex-like pairs with USD and several other major currencies.

What Is The Cardano 360 Event?

Every month, the Cardano foundation presents a show for contributors, developers and anyone else interested. The show outlines the latest news and developments for the blockchain in a novice-friendly video.

What Was The Mary Hard Fork?

Cardano recently carried out its first step in the Goguen release, called the Mary hard fork. The fork allows users to define their own custom tokens through the blockchain, paving the way for tradeable, structured NFTs.