Cardano is a great payment method. Its stated aim is “to bring about positive global change”, and that is what Mass Adoption is all about!
Launched in 2015 by a Hong Kong company named IOHK, it’s an open-source, decentralized project that uses proof-of-stake transaction validation. Compared to Bitcoin’s 7 transactions a second, Cardano can achieve 1000 per second.
Cardano is also considered to be one of the most environmentally sustainable blockchains.
ADA as payment
![Cardano as payment](https://nowpayments.io/blog/nowpayments-content/uploads/2021/09/posle-zapuska-smart-kontraktov-v-seti-cardano-stoimost-ada-upala-na-10-1-1024x681.jpeg)
The payment benefits of ADA are plenty, besides its speed and scalability, and it has a great many use cases: payments, donations, payouts, digital identity, decentralized finance, property rights, legal contracts, and more.
But let’s focus on this topical factor: ADA is much more energy-efficient than Bitcoin and is on the list of environmentally conscious cryptocurrencies. According to this Reddit post, Cardano might be 37,500 times more energy-efficient than Bitcoin. Think about it! ADA is even the third when it comes to being least “energy-hungry”.
Cardano and Environment Sustainability
![Cardano and Environment Sustainability](https://nowpayments.io/blog/nowpayments-content/uploads/2021/09/How-Cardano-is-Solving-the-Sustainability-Problem-1024x580-1.jpeg)
You cannot mine Cardano, hence the minuscule energy use. ADA can be staked instead of that. You can accept Cardano payments and keep them in a Cardano wallet, receiving a certain percentage for that. This is what “Proof of Stake” is, which makes Cardano sustainable.
How it works
So, like already mentioned above, Cardano uses a ‘Proof of Stake’ consensus mechanism. To join the network, participants buy tokens. Thus, an enormous amount of energy is saved. According to the founder of Cardano, the network uses only 6 GWh of power, which allows it to offer a “balanced and sustainable ecosystem”.
Conclusion
Cardano aims to fix a lot of challenges of the modern world, and ADA being a sustainable payment method is an inspiring opportunity for businesses and more, with a lot of use cases it got.