Flawed Narratives About Cardano
Unmasking the rumors with truth and knowledge
FLAWED NARRATIVES
1. Epoch means there is a lock-up period and slashing.
Wrong! Cardano has epochs, but has no lock-up period and no slashing.
2. Cardano is Delegated-Pos
Cardano is Pos! Go to the following link to learn about the differences about Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms.
3. Cardano use BFT-PoS (Which is great for transaction finality but it's the cause of 33% attacks and scales quadratically)
Cardano has Ouroboros!
Ouroboros is a decentralized ledger protocol that is analyzed in the context of both Byzantine and rational behavior.
What makes the protocol unique is the combination of the following design elements:
It uses stake as the fundamental resource to identify the participants leverage in the system.
No physical resource is wasted in the process of ledger maintenance. It is proven to be resilient even if arbitrarily large subsets of participants, in terms of stake, abstain from ledger maintenance. This guarantee of dynamic availability ensures liveness even under arbitrary, and unpredictable levels of engagement.
Ouroboros is distinctly more resilient and adaptable than classical Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocols (as well as all their modern adaptations), which have to predict with relative certainty the level of expected participation and may stop operating when the prediction is false.
The process of joining and participating in the protocol execution is trustless in the sense that it does not require the availability of any special shared resource such as a recent checkpoint or a common clock. Engaging in the protocol requires merely the public genesis block of the chain and access to the network. This makes Ouroboros free of the trust assumptions common in other consensus protocols whose security collapses when trusted shared resources are subverted or unavailable.
Ouroboros incorporates a reward-sharing mechanism to incentivize participants to organize themselves in operational nodes, known as stake pools, that can offer a good quality of service independently of how the stake is distributed among the user population. In this way, all stakeholders contribute to the systemβs operation β ensuring robustness and democratic representation β while the cost of ledger maintenance is efficiently distributed across the user population.
At the same time, the mechanism comes with countermeasures that de-incentivize centralization. This makes Ouroboros fundamentally more inclusive and decentralized compared with other protocols.
5. People comparing Cardano Transactions against other blockchains and measuring cardano activity in transactions
Cardano Uses eUTxO instead of the traditional accounting model. That means cardano is able to make hundreds of tranfers to multiple addresses in parallel in a single transaction! Don't bring TPS (Transactions Per Second) to the table when Cardano is around. It just makes no sense.
A single transaction, with full usage of current eUTxO model can contain as many as 1500 user request. Source: How much has the Vasil upgrade improved Cardano?
If you want to measure Cardano activity, try a different unit of measure, like the number of eUTxOs per second or the number of recipient addresses.
Also that ability is one of the best pillars that make gaming industry want to develop in Cardano.
Last but not least, Cardano is evolving. That also means Cardano's TPS will keep becoming faster. Check this link: Increasing the transaction throughput of Cardano.
6. Total Value Locked (TVL)
Total Value Locked is an indicator popular on smart contract dependant blockchains.
How does it work?
It measures DeFi assets locked in smart contracts: Includes rewards and interest coming from typical services such as lending, staking and liquidity pools provided in the form of smart contracts.
When it comes to Cardano pools, your stake doesn't need to use a smart contract and it's never locked. It works like this:
I'm staking both my ADA and NFTs and this indicator cannot see it.
7. Missleading information:
Not long ago, I remember Cardano had a bug in TESTNET. The news spread like wild fire!
It's a testet. That's the right place to break things.
8. Cardano delay on updates date as main topic. (Just a few month)
Other blockchains waited for years and the delay was never pointed out.
9. Cardano is at risk since 3 entities control parameters of the blockchain
Alright. I'll go steep by step here. Those parameters are:
The fees.
The transaction size
The block size.
Those entities have all of its members doxxed and they are:
IOG
Cardano Foundation
Emurgo
What happens if the the parameters change?
What if the fee parameter is changed? All Cardano community is able to see the fee ammount before attempting to make a transaction.
What happens if transaction and block size are set to zero? No one will be able to make transactions.
What happens to our assets if this happens? They remain in place. They have no access to our Wallets.
What are the gains they get? Almost none, even if someone decides to make a transaction it's hard not to glance at the fees when you input the ammount. You can still do it. But fees do not go directly to the block producer (Which by the way, is also randomly selected). Instead, they are pooled and then distributed to all pools that created blocks during an epoch
What do they lose by doing that? They've got much to lose since they are doxxed and the gains they could get do not balance out with the hell they are getting into by doing so.
Conclusion:
This fits the non-credible threat category. (Nash equilibrium and the non-credible threat - Economy)
10. Speculation about SPOs (Single Pool Operators) actually being MPOs (Multiple Pool Operators)
In order to become a SPO you need to follow this guide: How to build a stakepool node.
Some of the data required include: Static IP address, SSH authetication, configuration files that identify not only user data but also your network and more.
You could still do it if you own another location and use a different user data. But it's not so easy to meet those conditions.
It's more troublesome to set up two pools as a SPO, since that means you need to move between different locations. As MPO, you can just manage the pools from same place.
Conclusion: The Probability is very low. Just become a MPO if you want to operate more pools.
11. Pools not generating blocks do not add up to the descentralization of the blockchain
That is Wrong! The main functions of a stakepool are:
Forge new blocks.
Verify new blocks.
Confirm transactions.
So pools not generating blocks still play a role verifying blocks and confirming transactions. Source: What is the function of a stakepool in Cardano?
12. Hard Fork means Downtime.
That is not true for Cardano since it has the Hard Fork Combinator.
Cardano has 100% uptime record.
No chain restart or splitting.
Nodes can upgrade gradually.
One blockchain history for all upgrades.
13. Cardano is inflationary
Cardano supply is set at 45 Billons ADA, and that has never changed. If you know a bit about Economy, you will know that the price fluctuation of a crypto can be related to a few things.
Why a cryptocurrency price can rise?
Decreasing circulating supply ammount: The circulating supply is the ammount of crypto that is publicly available. This metric counts the number of coins available for trade, as opposed to the number of maximum coin supply. If more people buys crypto then the price pumps up due to less circulating supply available (more scarcity).
Bull market: All cryptos will rise in the market together.
Hype: A rumor related to a certain crypto is spread. It doesn't matters if it's true or not. As a result more investors will buy that coin diminishing circulating supply publicly available, hence the price rises due to scarcity.
Crypto Burning: That is a way to increase scarcity of a coin. That generates an effect of deflation short-term but long-term will harm the ecosystem since the high volatility of cryptocurrencies is an obstacle to adoption, and only invites speculation. Burning is made gradually in fees for each block.
This system is striking since the fees are incentives to cover the costs of running and maintaining the network secure.
Why a cryptocurrency price can fall?
Increasing circulating supply ammount: The circulating supply is the ammount of crypto that is publicly available. This metric counts the number of coins available for trade, as opposed to the number of maximum coin supply. If more people sells crypto then the price goes down due to more circulating supply available (less scarcity).
Bear Market: All cryptos will fall in the market together.
News against a certain crypto target: Others make claims about a crypto in hopes to make their investors flow to other ecosystems. It doesn't matters if the claims are true or not. What matters is the end result. (This will only work shor-term. If the crypto is all about development you cant stop its addoption long-term).
No Crypto Burning: This is what speculators hate. They don't care about utility, they just care about short-term results no matter if the blockchain stability becomes harmed due to that. If they deem the supply ammount is high, they'll ask for crypto burning. if the community refuses to do that, they'll sell their positions looking for a place better suited for speculation. This means the crypto market price is less manipulative, and invites adoption.
The main advantage is that the fees fill the Treasury, so if Cardano is successful, it will never run out of money for further development. This makes Cardano sustainable in the long term. Source: Cryptocurrency burning is monetary policy hell.
14. Cardano's tokenomics is bad due to high supply
If you are a speculator, an ecosystem like Cardano may not suit you. Cardano doesn't have a ponzinomics scheme to please investors. Most of those investing in Cardano don't do it blindly. They most likely did their own research, and do it due to its real utility and unique technology. Advanced Gaming industry will be the first to gain out of Cardano advantages, since they need a stable ecosystem, without speculation, to attract real players that really care.
Cardano is getting ready for massive adoption in the coming years when its scalability advantages, and sidechains start to work together coupled with the EUTxO model, making it perfect for other blockchains to settle in Cardano, and inherit Cardano advantages.
You still Think ADA supply is still too high? Time will tell, but currently there are other cryptos with two times the supply ammount of ADA (XRP is an example), and they seem to be doing fine (At least from a market price perspective).
15. Talking about market popularity and profit as if that's all that matters.
With that logic, no one should care about Einstein's Relativity theory since Newton's approach was more popular back then.
Profit due to crypto burning and popularity are short-term. How long will that last?Cardano is growing into a healthy ecosystem since foundation and it's been only a year since we have smart contracts.
Now lets talk about Cardano real weaknesses and strenghts objectively.
CARDANO WEAKNESSES
1. Simple Transactions
When it comes to simple transactions, cardano cannot make full use of eUTxO potential. The transaction speed can be easily surpassed by other top L1 chains specialized on TPS (Transactions Per Second) on that scenario.
This will only last until Cardano scaling capabilities get ready. Once Hydra is ready, Cardano will be at the forefront of TPS too, and thats only one out of the six scaling path on Cardano between Layer 1 and Layer 2.
Check Hydra in action here: How fast is Hydra?
2. Delays on Hard Fork or implemetantion dates
The general public wants to know about an estimated date. In that case it's better to tell them in advace to take it with a grain of salt. A promised date means investors and developers will plan ahead for that date.
3. Cardano is lacking in the marketting department
Eventually, all the hard work will pay off (long-term), but we should also promote it. In the market is not always the best project the most successful. It's the one who manages to impress most people positively in one way or another. And sadly, It doesn't matters if whatever it's said is actually true or not (short-term).
4. Haskell is complex
Smart contracts with Haskell are complex to learn for mainstream programmers since they were educated in a different paradigm. They can dish out classes and interfaces without a hitch, but theyβre simply not used to functional patterns. Plutus and Marlowe are making things easier and will keep adding features.
Now other solutions based on python are being developed.
CARDANO STRENGHTS
1. Descentralized third generation proof of stake blockchain
Born out of a scientific philosofy and research-driven approach.
Formally verified
2. Complex transactions and parallel processing
Cardano allows users to create complex transactions without the need to use a smart contract. That's why the transaction is so cheap and secure at the same time. Also, unlike smart contracts on Ethereum (serial processing), Cardano allows parallel processing.
3. Nfts and tokens created on Cardano are on-chain
That means that no smart contracts are involved, so Cardano blockchain is more efficient and secure. This limits the usage of smart contracts to scenarios where they are really needed.
This also makes Cardano blockchain less atractive to scammers that for example use smart contracts vulnerabilities when creating new tokens to turn them into "buy only tokens" for their fake pumps.
4. Forefront of descentralization
Cardano is at the forefront of descentralization. https://cexplorer.io/groups
Green color means single pool operators
5. Security
Security is one of the founding principles of Cardano.
Written in haskell, a secure functional programming language that encourages building a system using pure functions. This leads to a design where components are conveniently testable in isolation. Furthermore, advanced features of Haskell enable us to employ a whole range of powerful methods for ensuring code correctness, extensive property-based testing and running test in simulation.
You think Hakell is too complex? Cardano makes things easier with Plutus and Marlowe to help in the correct execution of smart contracts and financial contracts.
Another key feature about cardano security is that Ouroboros processes transaction blocks by dividing chains into epochs, which are further divided into time slots. A slot leader is elected for each time slot and is responsible for adding a block to the chain. To protect against adversarial attempts to subvert the protocol, each new slot leader is required to consider the last few blocks of the received chain as transient: only the chain that precedes a prespecified number of transient blocks is considered settled. This is also referred to as the settlement delay, and is the mechanism through which the ledger is securely passed between participants. This means you cant predict who will be the next leader, hence cardano is more secure against attacks. Source: https://cardano.org/ouroboros/
7. Interoperability
The ability to interact with other systems or interoperability, is a fundamental feature of Cardano. One of the current design innovations in Cardano is the use of sidechains, which means that you can compartmentalize the system and enable interoperability within the blockchain platform. Data can be kept off the main chain in what is called a sidechain. Multiple sidechains can run concurrently, so if one fails the rest of the system does not fail, as it is mantained separately. This results in greater assurance and reliability within the block chain. By using sidechains you can transfer assets between parallel blockchains that operate in different rules, mechanisms or languages and ways of utilizing the network
8. Forefront of efficiency
Cardano has bundled transfers to multiple addresses. And cardano does it in one transaction! This means less network traffic. After vasil H.F. (Learn about hard fork combinator if you don't know), transactions are faster and they can carry thousands of assets (NFTs, Tokens and Ada) each. So Cardano not only speeds up, Cardano does it in parallel mantaining efficiency!
9. Big community and wide ecosystem
Cardano has the biggest community on twitter and a wide ecosystem for you to explore.
https://www.cardanocube.io/cardano-ecosystem-interactive-map
Last updated