Category: Cardano

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Cardano Crypto News Education Institutions

5 Million Students In Ethiopia Set To Get National Identity Solution Powered By Cardano

Cardano Africa
Cardano Africa

IOHK has formed a partnership with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in order to implement a blockchain-based national identity solution for 5 million students and 750,000 teachers.

According to a tweet by IOHK Media this will be the world’s largest blockchain deployment to date.

Cardano (ADA) had also previously announced that they are working closely with Ethiopian private and public sector in order to “democratise social and financial services for the world’s 1.7 billion ‘unbanked’ people in Africa”.

How Will Digital Identity Help Students?

By using blockchain technology, qualifications attained by individuals can be verified by the system and therefore ending fraudulent university and jobs applications. Employers will be able to verify the individuals credentials without a third party.

Student IDs will also be paired with data from Learning Management Systems and harnessed by machine learning algorithms to drive personalised teaching, a dynamic curriculum, and data-driven policies and funding.

All teachers and pupils will be issued with tablets with a dedicated network where students can access their academic records. This infrastructure will open the doors to higher education and employment for 80% of students who live in rural regions.

This forms a key plank of our National Digital Transformation Strategy and will underpin a uniquely transparent, data-driven education system based on a dynamic curriculum.

Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopian Education Minister

Is Ethiopia Ready For Such Radical Change?

Doing business in Africa can be difficult due to lack of infrastructure as well as political instability in most countries. Ethiopia is no exception with their inhabitants experiencing Internet shutdowns as well as military forces fighting in the Tigray region. In a report by the Guardian almost 2,000 people killed in more than 150 massacres in this area.

However on the positive side there is a strong belief that blockchain technology is a possible catalyst to end digital exclusion and increase access to higher education.

Ethiopia’s Sheba Valley is already recognised as the leading AI hub in Africa, 70 per cent of our university graduates are in STEM subjects and we are now leading the way in using blockchain to digitalise education.

Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopian Education Minister

IOHK have set major goals, and it seems that they have quite the task ahead to be able to make their vision a reality amid the harsh realities surrounding them in Ethiopia.

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Cardano NFTs

Cardano Could Support NFTs Marketplaces Soon

As the popularity of NFTs (Non-Fungible Token) grows, Cardano’s co-founder Charles Hoskinson is planning to integrate NFT marketplaces into the protocol, adding that negotiations are already being made with top marketplaces.

Currently, the project is working on Alonzo, its next fork, and Hoskinson has been exploring the NFT movement in the meantime. In a podcast, he said that Cardano has the capacity to develop an ecosystem for these marketplaces to operate seamlessly next to decentralised exchanges.

With NFTs we’ve already approached several of the top-10 marketplaces and begun discussions porting them over to Cardano. It’s an easy conversation, and it’s just engineering resources.

NFTs Being Sold for Millions

Hoskinson spoke about NFTs in a previous podcast, stating that current DAapps only work for speculation, like NFT items being sold for millions of dollars and not addressing the real issues of the DeFi community:

“Most DApps are currently centralised by a small group of actors who control the changes in the protocols, we have to actually listen to what people are saying”

While Cardano is currently in the middle stage of its upgrade, working on the programmability at the base layer, the protocol is “overwhelming subscribed” from companies interested in its network.

We’re overwhelmingly subscribed. At the moment, our company has no more capacity to service the deal flow that comes in for Cardano. People come to me, unless it’s a super high-value deal, and some have, we jump them up the queue, we say ‘No’ and turn them down.

Hoskinson previously said that over 100 companies could migrate to Cardano once the Goguen upgrade is finished. Despite not having smart contracts yet, the protocol will not host Ethereum-based smart contracts, which would “lead the company to the same issues such as scalability and high gas fees.”

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Blockchain Cardano Crypto News

Cardano Blockchain Plans To Provide Africa With Decentralised Identity and Financial Systems

It looks like Cardano will be used as the decentralized financial platform as announced by Charles Hoskinson – CEO of IOG at the Blockchain Africa Summit.

The introduction of Cardano to Africa, initially through Ethiopia, Hoskinson has predicted that the “miracle of Africa” will make the emergence of China as a world power look small in comparison, as millions of people are onboarded onto Cardano.

Cardano, The Blockchain That Can Run an Entire Country

IOG (Input Output Global) is building a decentralized finance system on Cardano (ADA) that aims to unite the world’s economies. IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson revealed the formation of a partnership with Ethiopia two years after Cardano protocol was constructed. And after building many local relationships, training staff, and overcoming obstacles, the platform is at a turning point on the continent where millions of users will join the Cardano ecosystem though public and private partnerships.

In the next 5 years, our staff in Africa will grow from dozens to hundreds, if not thousands. Instead of having one headquarters, we will probably have 4 or 5 across the continent.

IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson

Cardano has had a strong presence in Africa for years, and Hoskinson who wants to take the lead in DeFi (Decentralize Finance) wants to apply these use cases in Africa. These countries have a more relaxed regulatory environment and according to him is rife with opportunity. The idea is to make the wealth of Africa liquid, allowing individuals to play a much larger role as well as share in the riches of the economy.

The first countries to make national elections online will likely be African nations. The first to have an end-to-end digital identity and economy, there is a lot of potential for them to be African nations.

IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson

Decentralised Identities

Hoskinson also revealed that the Prism team, working on a Decentralised Identities (DID) solution will be expanded enabling them to bid on and seal flagship contracts allowing Cardano to do business with various private and public entities.

What I can say is that we are at the final stages of a large government contract that would have multimillion users being onboarded onto the platform for real-world blockchain implementation.

IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson

Since this project is so large in scope a few things have gone wrong and unforeseen setbacks have moved due dates of projects up by a month or two. Also, the difficulty of doing business in Africa is one of the more difficult hurdles to overcome since there are some extra barriers in Africa that one wouldn’t normally encounter in first world countries.

Boom In The Ecosystem

But the two projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania are just the beginning. As O’Connor also revealed, IOG has three other “focus countries”: South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. For South Africa, he said, it is an “interesting project” involving insurance. All projects are expected to reach several million people, so IOG will attract 100 million users in the first stage.

That should be just the beginning. After these five focus countries, we got plans for another 15 countries which we will be working on after we delivered on these first five.

John O’Connor, Director of African Operations at IOG

And after a recent statement by Hoskinson that 100 companies are in the process of moving over the Cardano from Ethereum the future of the ecosystem looks bright. But it seems ADA stakeholders are still waiting for the birds to land.

This news follows recent news that ADA was listed on Coinbase.

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Cardano Coinbase Crypto News

ADA Surges 18% in Price as Coinbase Pro Allows ADA Trading

Today, Coinbase announced support for Cardano’s ADA in Coinbase Pro. Trading will start this Thursday, at 9:00 PM pacific time. Users can compare ADA’s price in four currencies:

  • ADA-USD
  • ADA-BTC
  • ADA-EUR
  • ADA-GBP

According to the blog post, Coinbase will support Shelley addresses, one of Cardano’s wallets with the prefix “addr1”. The platform is planning to provide full support for the Byron wallet, also called “Legacy”.

Coinbase Users Demanding ADA

Cardano is rising fast in the crypto-community since the protocol implemented the Mary Fork in its ecosystem, turning it into a multi-asset network.

Likewise, the support for ADA came shortly after the platform registered heavy demand from users, as Cardano becomes an attractive asset for crypto-traders and investors.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Charles Hoskinson gave stated that about 100 DeFi protocols will ditch Ethereum and switch to Cardano’s protocol. Accordingly, Cardano is ready to provide several benefits for DeFi than its competitors with its new multi-asset system.

The ADA token surged over 477% since January this year, calling the attention of several investors in the crypto market.

More Australians Buying ADA

Likewise, more Australians are considering adding ADA to their portfolio as price increases. Moreover, the token appeared in 9 News Australia, in a section called “The New Bitcoin”, stating that more investors are exploring Cardano as an alternative for BTC.

ADA is up 18% following the announcement, trading at $1,21, according to Coinmarketcap. 24-hour trading volumes have reached levels over $7,500,000,000, a 70.00% increase.

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Australia Cardano

More Australians May Flock to Buy ADA as Bullish Sentiment Grows

Cardano’s native crypto asset ADA, which taking a greater role in the crypto market is now entering the Australian mainstream. The asset was recently featured on 9 News Australia where they called ADA “The Next Bitcoin”.

Traders and investors who are seeking alternative assets with great potential may also consider Cardano, as there is a strong bullish sentiment in the market right now for ADA.

Investors are looking for the next bitcoin, meaning they’re investing in cheaper tokens like Cardano’s ADA, IOTA, and Tron, all of which are priced around the $1 mark. We believe this year could see this hunt for the next ‘bitcoin’ intensify, as the market widens and other coins gain their own following.

Simon Peters for 9 News Australia

Why is the Community so Bullish on ADA?

ADA is already up over 600% for 2021, and is now becoming one of the most lucrative cryptos for traders and the crypto development community.

ADAUSD Chart by TradingView

The ADA token had a successful bull run since the beginning of February in 2021. When Cardano started working on the Gogen Mary fork (a major protocol change in the network) on February 3, ADA increased massively in price, reaching an All-Time High of $1.47, and trading volumes of nearly $20,000,000.

A Multi-asset Blockchain

Cardano is also entering the DeFi space with its new multi-asset blockchain. This could also be a reason for the recent price rise. Developers from other DeFi firms can now build their own tokens on Cardano (just like Ethereum), making it a more useful crypto.

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Cardano Crypto News Market Analysis Trading

3 Coins that Might Breakout this Week: ADA, DUSK, KAVA – Altcoins Trading Analysis

For today’s trading news, we’re looking at three Altcoins that might breakout this week by showing bullish trends in the charts.

1. Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change.

The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent, and fair.

Cardano Price Analysis

At the time of writing, ADA is ranked 3rd cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $1.60 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.

Source: TradingView

February provided respectable +348% gains for bulls who bought at the monthly open, with the price finding resistance near $1.58 AUD last Saturday.

If bulls take back control this week, the top of the former gap beginning at $1.36 AUD may provide support for at least a short-term bounce. The top of the consolidation range starting near $1.25 AUD is more likely to provide substantial support.

The most robust support is likely to be found in the overlapping consolidation ranges between $1.12 AUD and $0.95 AUD, with a sharp slice through these levels possibly suggesting the end of the bull run.

The region from approximately $1.46 AUD to the most recent swing high is likely to provide some resistance. The swing high provides a reasonable first target for a possible next leg up.

If this high breaks, the 1.0 extension near $2.28 AUD and the 2.0 extension near $2.86 AUD may provide the next primary targets.

2. Dusk Network (DUSK)

Dusk Network describes itself as a blockchain for programmable and confidential securities, powered by Zero-Knowledge proofs and novel Private PoS leader extraction-based consensus protocol. Dusk Network is a privacy blockchain for financial applications. It is a layer-1 blockchain that powers the Confidential Security Contract (XSC) standard and supports native confidential smart contracts.

Dusk Network aims to address the requirements and needs of financial markets. Central to its design is a scalable public infrastructure, direct settlement finality of transactions, and strict data privacy.

DUSK Price Analysis

At the time of writing, DUSK is ranked 292nd cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $0.3312 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.

Source: TradingView

Last month’s bulls enjoyed +300% gains at DUSK’s peak before the price confirmed stiff resistance beginning at $0.2876 AUD.

The four-hour chart shows that support may be forming between $0.2263 AUD and $0.2498 AUD, near the monthly open.

Aggressive bulls could enter in this area, although safer entries may be found much further below near $0.1670 AUD and $0.1473 AUD after a sweep of the current consolidation’s swing lows.

The last swing high near $0.3288 AUD provides a likely first target if the price does bounce from this region. Beyond this swing high, the 1.0 extension near $0.5824 AUD and the 2.0 extension near $0.7957 AUD may provide the next major targets.

3. Kava.io (KAVA)

Kava is a cross-chain DeFi lending platform that allows users to borrow USDX stablecoins and deposit a variety of cryptocurrencies to begin earning a yield.

The Kava DeFi hub operates as a decentralized bank for digital assets, allowing users to access a range of decentralized financial services, including its native USD-pegged stablecoin USDX, as well as synthetics and derivatives. Through Kava, users are able to borrow USDX tokens by depositing collateral, effectively leveraging their exposure to crypto-assets.

KAVA Price Analysis

At the time of writing, KAVA is ranked 128th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $5.26 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.

Source: TradingView

KAVA’s +161% February run retraced almost to its origin, narrowly missing probable support near $3.98 AUD before bears swatted down the bounce near resistance around $4.85 AUD.

With the daily gap between $3.66 AUD and $3.75 AUD below this level. However, the safer entry is still in probable support between $3.90 AUD and $3.83 AUD, which would also sweep the lows of last week’s bounce.

The relatively equal highs near $5.45 AUD provide a likely first target on lower timeframes. However, the resistance beginning at $5.33 AUD may initially suppress a further move up.

A clean breakthrough this resistance will need to contend with the next resistance near $5.40 AUD, under the last swing high. This swing high at $5.80 AUD gives a reasonable take-profit area before a possible move to the 1.0 extension near $8.55 AUD.

Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?

These 3 Altcoins have the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that would help for trading on USDT or BTC pairs. However, if you’re just looking at buying some quick and hodling then Swyftx Exchange is a popular choice in Australia.

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Blockchain Cardano Cryptocurrencies

Cardano Becomes A Multi-Asset Blockchain

Following today’s hard form – codenamed Mary – Cardano will allow other blockchain-based firms to make and run their own tokens on the Cardano blockchain.

Expanding A Booming Cryptocurrency

Cardano (ADA) has enjoyed a spectacular growth in recent weeks – as well as some open endorsements, such as the one by rockstar and investor Gene Simmons, who recently bought $300,000 worth of ADA and motivated his decision as an investment into a “cryptocurrency for everyone”.

“ Why did I buy Cardano (ADA)? Well, for one thing, it’s affordable to almost everyone. It’s pennies compared to my other holdings like Bitcoin, which is over $50,000 a single coin. I believe everyone should be able to afford cryptocurrency. And here is one I believe in.”

Back in 2017, Ethereum sparked the so-called “altcoin revolution” by allowing other companies to mint their own tokens on the Ethereum blockchain – and they have since become and maintained their position as the 2nd largest cryptocurrency.

With a bit of luck, Cardano – a cryptocurrency already favourable to new developments and use cases – will see a similar growth.

The company behind Cardano – named IOHK – have been testing the update for around a month and have reportedly received positive feedback from exchanges and other blockchain-based companies regarding the fork.

“We’ve been testing it for almost a month, and the test looks good, exchanges are happy.”

Charles Hoskinson – the founder of IOHK – presented the hard fork of Cardano as a “historic moment”.

Before founding IOHK and Cardano, Hoskinson was a co-founder of Ethereum and BitShares – and it seems the prior experience has been put to good use, with ADA recently becoming the 3rd largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

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Cardano Crypto News

Market Reshuffle: Cardano (ADA) Becomes the Third-largest Cryptocurrency

Cardano (ADA) is one of the cryptocurrencies that has seen massive increase in price since the start of 2021. On Friday, Cardano reached another yearly high of US$1.29, which pushed up the market valuation above that of Binance Coin (BNB) into 3rd place.

Cardano Is Growing

Amidst the recent dip in the crypto market, Cardano was the only cryptocurrency in the top ten with a positive 24 hours (change of +4.46%) and weekly price (change of +30.51%).

Moving to the derivative market, Cardano also sees an increase in the open interest in futures. According to the market information on ByBt, there was about 585.73 million ADA (or US$703.48 million) in ADA futures open interest at press time. This represents about a 10.1 percent increase on the 24-hour change. BitMEX and Binance exchange dominates the open interest in ADA futures, as both derivative platforms see hundreds of millions of ADA. 

What’s New Cardano?

Many people are attributing the increase today to the recent announcement of the upcoming major protocol change, the “Mary Upgrade.” As per the Cardano core development team (IOKH), the upgrade is expected to go live on the Cardano mainnet by March 1.

According to IOHK, the update will be activated by a Hardfork Combinator, allowing the system to transition without requiring a chain split on Cardano.

The Cardano team is saying that “Mary opens up a world of possibilities to developers looking to migrate to or build user-defined native tokens on Cardano completely. This feature will transform the decentralized blockchain into a multi-asset blockchain”.

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Cardano Cryptocurrencies Investing

Gene Simmons Buys $300k Worth Of Cardano

Gene Simmons — a man who used to be known exclusively for rocking out on stage and an unforgettable coat of face paint — has also become known for his positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies. 

The KISS frontman has sizable holdings in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin,  and other cryptocurrencies. He’s also — in typical rockstar fashion — declared himself the God of Dogecoin. Elon Musk may be surprised to hear that. 

An Affordable Cryptocurrency 

Explaining his recent purchase of Cardano (ADA) worth $300k, Gene Simmons stated that he believes everyone should be able to afford cryptocurrency, and Cardano is affordable for everyone. 

“ Why did I buy Cardano (ADA)? Well, for one thing, it’s affordable to almost everyone. It’s pennies compared to my other holdings like Bitcoin, which is over $50,000 a single coin. I believe everyone should be able to afford cryptocurrency. And here is one I believe in.”

The value of Cardano has grown from around 6 cents last February to $1.09 at the time this article was written. Cardano is currently one of the top cryptocurrencies by market cap, in a constant battle with XRP, LINK, XLM, and USDT. The cryptocurrency seeks to create a platform that will allow the mainstream financial system to interact with crypto networks, as well as fix the Bitcoin scalability issue. 

Gene Simmons has also been accused by detractors of taking payments in exchange for endorsements of cryptocurrencies —  to which he responded, saying people should do their own research before buying cryptocurrency — but also saying that sometimes people should ease up on the cynicism. 

Celebrities and crypto are now heavily in the limelight, we recently saw accusations that Tron paid celebrities to endorse TRX coin.

Cardano, Chainlink, and Ripple have all been working on inventing ways to connect the mainstream financial system to the blockchain ecosystem — and if market caps are any indicators of success, things will only get better for them from here on out.

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Australia Cardano Cryptocurrencies Ripple

Should Australians Switch to Cardano? ADA Surpasses XRP and other Altcoins in a Frenzy Bullish Run

Cardano —listed ADA— has outranked Ripple’s XRP as the fourth-highest market cap cryptocurrency, with a surge of more than 80% in just seven days. The token could become an attractive opportunity for Aussies looking to replace XRP.

At the time of writing, ADA is currently traded at $0.63, surpassing XRP with a trading volume of $11.913.631.193 and price gains over 17.00% in the last 24 hours.

Top ten cryptos with highest market cap on Coinmarketcap

While most altcoins slightly corrected after Bitcoin hit $41K and dropped -6% below that level, Cardano remained strong among other tokens, and increasing its market cap to over $20 billion.

XRP Still On The Lose

On the contrary, XRP, the second-most preferred digital asset by Australians still struggles to maintain itself on a solid price level.

In the last seven days, the asset fell into a downtrend following a crowd pump by the XRP community supporters and Reddit groups, who tried to break resistance levels but crashed massively just after Redditors from the r/WallStreetBets started buying as well.

The Goguen Mary Testnet Could “Outshine” ETH 2.0

Charles Hoskinson, Co-Founder of Cardano and Ethereum, believes that Cardano’s “Goguen Mary” testnet could outperform ETH 2.0 in the future. The Cardano company was working since February 3 on a “Mary” fork for Cardano, and it was successfully deployed this week.

I think Vitalik’s [approach] is a little bit riskier from an engineering and research viewpoint, which is why it’s been so difficult for them to get ETH 2.0 out.

The new features included the support of “native” custom tokens through direct transactions in the Cardano Blockchain —instead of using Smart Contracts like Ethereum or others. Now the Cardano network has transformed into a multi-asset ledger that could also improve the DeFi ecosystem through custom token support.