# Why Cardano? ### What makes Cardano such a timely investment? Blockchain technology is in its very first years of development, and adoption is growing exponentially. With the rise in economic destabilization, the threat of extended war, and the weaponization of the current financial system, new financial infrastructure will find an opportunity to gain market share over the next few years. While Bitcoin started the cryptocurrency revolution and Ethereum introduced Smart Contracts, Cardano is leading the Third Generation Blockchain, aiming to solve scalability, interoperability, and governance matters. Cardano is a proof-of-stake, sustainable and open-source blockchain with a big focus on interoperability, security, and scaling using a solid foundation of peer-reviewed data. Cardano is one of the few blockchains with concrete community building. Currently has more than 21B Market Cap and millions of users worldwide. Led by Charles Hoskinson (co-founder of Ethereum), it has followed a path of peer-reviewed research and updates, unlike other Blockchains' “move fast and break things” style. Cardano's growth will depend on solving scaling solutions. #### **Cardano Ecosystem** Alonzo hard-fork was implemented on Cardano last year, allowing Smart Contracts. Hundreds of new Defi (Decentralized Finance) projects started to build on Cardano. Lending/Borrowing, Swaps, Launchpads, Stablecoin protocols, Oracles, Synthetic Assets, Insurance, Marketplaces, Data, Decentralized Exchanges, Metaverses, Play to Earn, and NFT projects are some of the areas and projects that are building on Cardano. Also, Layer 2 solutions and interoperability projects like Bridges and Converters. We are watching the very first stage of an ecosystem that will create a lot of richness, solutions, and value for the world. #### **Ultrascalable Cardano** The explosive growth in Defi Smart Contracts on Cardano has led to congestion on the network. This was anticipated and prepared for in the long-term roadmap of Cardano. With the last Vasil Hardfork implementation, we enter the fourth Cardano era, called Basho, focusing on scalability. The Cardano Foundation is now focused on bringing scaling solutions, including increasing the block size and Layer 2 solutions like Hydra and ZK (zero-knowledge) rollups. Vasil Hardfork and Hydra are massive innovations that are allowing Cardano to support 2 million transactions per second and solve many of the challenges Defi projects and dApps on Cardano used to have. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://mayz.gitbook.io/mayz-whitepaper-v2/mayz/knowledge-base/why-cardano.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.