Cardano is a blockchain platform that's founded on peer-reviewed research. In a milestone for the platform, it launched smart contracts on testnet in May 2021, with a mainnet launch to follow later in the year. Cryptocurrencies currently face a number of challenges, including scalability, energy consumption, and the ability to interact with regular money.
Cardano calls itself a third-generation public blockchain. Its community is working to solve these problems and to improve on its predecessors, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
As of May 2021, Cardano is the fifth-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.