Cardanoâs primary purpose is to facilitate transactions with its native cryptocurrency,ADA, and empower developers to build applications on itsâ scalable and sustainable network.Â
The Cardano blockchain is split into two layers:Â
- The Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) facilitates and records all ADA transactions.Â
- The Cardano Computation Layer (CCL) contains the smart contract logic, which determines the rules and conditions for each transaction.Â
Cardano uses what is known as Ouroboros, a PoS algorithm that creates blocks and validates transactions on the blockchain.This network is divided into epochs and slots, where epochs represent the overarching timeframes and slots represent 20-second intervals.
In every slot, a leader is randomly picked to add the next block onto the blockchain, and after that, the next slot leader is picked.
There are three types of nodes that operate Cardano:
- Edge - used to create cryptocurrency transactions.
- mCore â allows you to stake ADA and participate in the distributed governance.
- Relay - facilitates data transfers between mCore and the public internet.
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