ADA — the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano network — is among the myriad of cryptocurrencies that saw their price soar in 2021.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block's Frank Chaparro sat down with Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global, to unpack the ecosystem underpinning the price headlines.

While Cardano's ADA has surged over the course of 2021, the blockchain that underpins the token is yet to play host to a large decentralized exchange, of the kind that have sprung up on Solana or Ethereum. There have also been questions about the number of successful decentralized applications or 'DApps' in the ecosystem, when compared to others.

Hoskinson says that this sentiment reflects a misunderstanding about what is being developed on Cardano.

"There's almost 200 DApps that are under construction right now," he noted. "SundaeSwap is one of the most prominent, it's launching tomorrow," referring to the DEX that launched Thursday — albeit with congestion issues that resulted in some transactions taking longer than expected to complete.

"There are several already running on the ecosystem," Hoskinson clarified.

In the future, Cardano could even continue to exist without the participation of the Wyoming-resident. As Hoskinson opined, "the founders are important because they get the party started and they set the initial state of the system." He went on to add, "I think that you have to plan for obsolescence, you have to plan to fire yourself. And that's what Satoshi did."

Episode 3 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global.

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