This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of blockchain technology, where most projects emerged from Silicon Valley garages or underground cryptography forums, Cardano represents something fundamentally different: a blockchain platform born from rigorous academic research and peer-reviewed scientific methodology. The story of Cardano begins not with a single visionary or a corporate boardroom decision, but with a commitment to building blockchain infrastructure through the same methodical processes that have driven scientific advancement for centuries.

Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, found himself increasingly frustrated with the direction of blockchain development in the mid-2010s. While the cryptocurrency space was exploding with innovation and speculation, Hoskinson observed that most projects were being built without sufficient theoretical foundation or long-term sustainability planning. The "move fast and break things" mentality that had served social media companies well seemed inappropriate for financial infrastructure that would need to secure trillions of dollars in value and operate reliably for decades.

This frustration led Hoskinson to establish Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) in 2015, with the ambitious goal of creating a blockchain platform that would be built on peer-reviewed academic research rather than trial-and-error experimentation. The name "Cardano" itself reflects this academic orientation, honoring Gerolamo Cardano, a 16th-century Italian polymath who made significant contributions to mathematics, medicine, and engineering. The platform's native cryptocurrency, ADA, was named after Ada Lovelace, often considered the world's first computer programmer and a pioneering figure in the intersection of mathematics and computation.