🧵12/n
Alongside extensive desk research, we reached out to 150+ projects to assemble The #EssentialCardano Guide to the Ecosystem, which highlights some of the people & projects building + powering Cardano's future.
1/10: The next Cardano upgrade targeted for February will bring new built-in functions to #Plutus, the smart contract programming language for the #Cardano blockchain, to support ECDSA and Schnorr cryptographic signatures to make it easier for developers to build cross-chain apps
2/10: Different blockchains use different cryptographic signature methods, such as ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, which are used in #Bitcoin and #Ethereum, among others.
3/10: #Cardano uses the Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) with elliptic curve Curve25519 as its base curve (Ed25519) which is fast, secure and small in size, but not compatible with ECDSA and Schnorr.
🧠 Hydra Head is the first in a suite of Hydra protocols that aim to increase network scalability. It's an L2 solution that works as an off-chain mini ledger between a small group of participants – similar to the main on-chain ledger but faster, more cost-efficient. #Cardano 1/n
🔎 Hydra Heads are fast, scalable, isomorphic, and customizable.
Hydra Head transactions and ledger rules are similar to #Cardano’s mainnet, which allows easy support by existing systems like #DApps and wallets. 2/n
Hydra Heads are most beneficial to be used by a small group of participants who need to process many quick interactions. Use cases include bank-to-bank transfers, pay-per-use API services, #NFT auctions, and light wallet micropayments among others. 3/n
Continuing live on stage, and here on the livestream, IOG's @khstandrews presents more on P2P #Decentralized networking and creating a fully decentralized and self-organized network.
@khstandrews Fun fact: Cardano turned five this year! Did you miss our blog celebrating the innovations happening across the ecosystem? Check it out here: iohk.io/en/blog/posts/…
As we continue looking back at Cardano’s milestones, today we focus on Shelley, Cardano’s second development phase. #CardanoADA
🧵 1/n
The Shelley phase
Shelley was a period of growth and development for the network, encompassing the critical early steps in Cardano’s journey to optimize #decentralization.
🧵 2/n
This phase saw the complete re-implementation of the Cardano node for improved reliability, assurance, and performance, and the ability to maintain and evolve the node over time.
Over the next 7 days, we’ll look back at #Cardano’s previous development phases as we prepare for #IOScotFest and the #CardanoSummit. Let’s start where it all began: with Byron.
🧵 1/n
The Byron phase:
The first incarnation of Cardano allowed users to buy and sell ada on a federated network running Ouroboros Classic, the first academic research-based proof-of-stake protocol with a mathematically-proven level of security.
🧵 2/n
This phase also saw the release of two Cardano-native wallets:
Daedalus, IOG's official desktop wallet for ada
Yoroi, a light wallet by EMURGO for quick transactions and day-to-day use