October 21, 2022
What Can You Do on Cardano?
Ben Beddow
Co-Founder
This is a common question asked about any blockchain by those who aren’t too involved in its community, and answering it is one of the reasons we created our unique Cardano project and ecosystem explorer Built on Cardano. Such a question is regularly -maybe not regularly enough- asked by YouTubers and influencers. Other common questions include: what does Cardano do exactly? And what will Cardano be used for?
Let’s take out all the technical superiority that the Cardano community regularly promotes -rightly so!- and focus on the plain and simple answers people are looking for when they ask these questions.
Here we’ll cover what you can use Cardano for, if Cardano has any partnerships, along with what they are and how they reflect on the vision set forth for Cardano as a blockchain for global change.
What Can You Do on Cardano?
Pretty much anything you can do on any other blockchain! That’s right. Many ask: does Cardano have a working product? And the answer is yes, on many counts. Cardano itself is a working product that many people have built protocols, NFT collections, communities, and more on top of. Let’s run through the three most talked about actions or activities in blockchain:
Staking - You can stake your ada to a Cardano stake pool and earn passive rewards for helping to secure the network. Your tokens never leave your wallet and are never locked, meaning you can spend and use them whenever you want! Rewards are distributed every 5 days and accumulate until you want to collect them. Learn more about staking on Cardano here.
DeFi - Cardano had $56m in TVL (167m ADA) at the time of writing according to DeFiLama. Users of Cardano DeFi can complete the same DeFi actions they can on other chains: swapping assets on AMM and order book style DEXs, lending and borrowing assets on decentralized lending protocols, participate in the crowd funding of projects through launchpads and accelerators, and farming rewards for supplying liquidity to various protocols. There are also protocols for producing synthetic assets, impacting the property asset class, and there are multiple stablecoins getting ready to launch on Cardano. Discover more in our Cardano DeFi project map.
It is worth mentioning that Cardano recently completed a hardfork that significantly upgraded the way Cardano smart contracts can function. Many DeFi protocols, with a large and passionate community following, have been waiting until after this to launch their products—so you can expect to see Cardano flexing its true DeFi muscles very soon!
NFTs - Cardano has JPEGs too! The NFT ecosystem and community on Cardano is something truly special and NFTs have been available on Cardano since March last year. There are thousands of NFT collections, dozens of NFT marketplaces, dedicated Cardano NFT calendars, community created fraud prevention tools, and more! Learn more in our Ultimate Guide for the Cardano NFT Degen.
NFT utility is growing and evolving on Cardano and NFTs can be found everywhere from Cardano blockchain games, to metaverse platforms, to DeFi protocols. Expect to see NFT utility grow and transform as the blockchain and Cardano ecosystem evolve.
Does Cardano Have Any Partnerships?
DeFi, NFTs, staking: these are all great use cases but who, besides the average Joe and Jane, is choosing to use Cardano? It turns out that quite a few people, enterprises, and governments from around the world have partnered with either IOHK or the Cardano Foundation to use the Cardano network for a wide variety of things.
These partnerships focus around the vision put forth by the team behind Cardano. The Cardano Foundation and IOHK see blockchain technology as a tool to drive positive change, and seek out and form partnerships that enact this change.
Ethiopian School System - IOG has partnered with the Ethiopian Government to implement a blockchain-based system for verifying and recording student achievement and performance. This will be done through their Atala PRISM decentralized identity, DiD, solution to give every teacher and student their own, DiD to associate with their immutable blockchain records. Learn more here.
Georgian Wine Industry - The Cardano Foundation has partnered with the Georgian National Wine Agency, Bolnisi Winemakers Association, and Scantrust to develop a supply chain tracking system that will provide transparent and certifiably traceability to the drinkers of wine originating from Georgia. Learn more here.
DISH - IOG has partnered with the USA-based, satellite TV company DISH to create a DiD and loyalty system for DISH users on the Cardano blockchain. This will use the IOG developed Atala PRISM solution. Learn more here.
Veritree - At the Cardano Summit in 2021 the Cardano Foundation announced a partnership with Veritree to create the Cardano forest. A fully recorded and verified reforestation effort on the Cardano blockchain. Discover more here.
So, does Cardano have any partnerships? Yes! Two of the founding entities of Cardano have forged partnerships that help to forward the vision of blockchain changing the world for the better. How many partners does Cardano have? It’s really hard to tell, but here are a few more from the Cardano Foundation.
Does Cardano Have a Future?
Without diving into any of the technical aspects of Cardano we’ve shown here how Cardano offers the same functionalities as any other blockchain out there and we’ve also collated information regarding partnerships made by the founding entities of the Cardano blockchain. So it begs the question: does Cardano have a future?
Cardano is research first and its design is focused around two strong fundamentals: code that can be formally verified and the use of game theory to determine the fairest protocol parameters. For anyone looking to compare blockchains these two attributes of Cardano are something they should dive into to get a true understanding of the protocol.
Why did we become users and advocates of Cardano, and why, to us, does Cardano have a future? The pragmatic and logical approach described above are certainly factors in recognizing the future resilience and continued existence of Cardano. However, a hugely motivating factor for us is the ability to enact real and positive change in the world with our actions, now and into the future.
Those involved in the development and advancement of the Cardano protocol make a conscious effort to steer the blockchain in the direction of using blockchain to enact positive change on the world, and the community have followed their lead in tremendous fashion.
You can do a lot with Cardano and that utility will continue to grow into the future!