Cardano, the home of ADA, is bidding to knock Ethereum (ETH) and EOS from their proverbial perches by letting “Rust” creep into the platform. However, far from the golden tinge being a sign of metallic rot, Rust looks set to change the network’s fortunes. Announced at the start of October, Cardano Rust is the project’s latest attempt to scale up the network and become more accessible to dApp developers. According to Cardano’s GitHub, the new feature will make it possible for developers to link to the platform using common coding languages such as C++. The upshot of this, in theory, is that Cardano will be able to host more dApps and, therefore, offer some direct competition to Ethereum and EOS.
Cardano Slowly Changing Its Ways
Looking at the practicalities of Cardano Rust, the main aim is to create an SDK for ADA blockchain users. In simple terms, developers will be able to code their apps using the SDK and connect directly to the blockchain. This innovation is set to tie in with the impending changes to the IOHK block producing function. Up until this point, Cardano’s blockchain has served as a centralised digital ledger. However, thanks to changes by founder Charles Hoskinson, IOHK is in the midst of an upgrade that will decentralise the block creation process.
If and when this happens, Cardano could become the next challenger to Ethereum. Despite critics constantly taking pot-shots at Ethereum’s lack of scalability, flexibility and security, it remains the go-to network for dApp developers. Indeed, at the time of writing, the price of ETH was still touching $226, making the digital token the second most valuable behind Bitcoin (BTC). In contrast, Cardano’s ADA is down in ninth on the global rankings with a current value just over $0.084. The optimists will look at this and say the price of ADA has a lot of room for improvement. However, the naysayers will say its current efforts are too little, too late to make it worth buying ADA online.
Ethereum and EOS Cracks Could Allow Cardano into the Mix
Indeed, even if Cardano Rust can succeed in making the network more appealing to dApp developers, the blockchain still needs to prove it can function as a decentralised entity. What’s more, the new feature is only likely to make Cardano as effective as EOS. Developers and users already know that EOS works. On top of that, the company lowered its transaction fees back in September after spotting a weakness in Ethereum. As hackers found a way to flood Ethereum and slow down processing times, transaction fees soared over the summer. Capitalising on this, EOS has lowered its fees, essentially offering a cheaper blockchain for dApp developers to work with.
However, as we saw in September, EOS isn’t impervious to security issues. Although the price of EOS remained stable after scammers found a way to manipulate the system using fake tokens, the incident showed a gaping hole in the system’s design. That leak has since been plugged, but confidence in EOS certainly took a knock following the hack. While no one is saying Cardano is perfect, security could be its way in. If the platform can offer a similar service to Ethereum and EOS but in a more secure way, that could become its USP. While the project will have to show more than that to become a leader in the dApp sector, there clearly are ways for Cardano to mount a serious challenge to EOS and Ethereum.
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