Assets¶

Assets are units of value that exist on the blockchain and can be transferred between participants. Assets in Cardano can be broadly classified into native assets and ADA (Lovelace) the native cryptocurrency of the network.

ADA is the primary cryptocurrency of the Cardano blockchain and serves multiple purposes:

• Transaction Fees: ADA is used to pay for transaction fees when users send or receive transactions on the Cardano blockchain.

• Staking: ADA holders can participate in the proof-of-stake consensus by delegating or staking their ADA to earn rewards.

• Governance: ADA is used in governance, allowing holders to vote on protocol changes and proposals.

• ADA is measured in lovelaces, where 1 ADA = 1,000,000 lovelaces. It is considered the base unit of currency on the Cardano network.

Native assets are user-defined tokens that can be created, transferred, and destroyed directly on the Cardano blockchain, just like ADA. These assets are often referred to as “multi-assets” because Cardano natively supports the creation and transfer of multiple types of assets within the same transaction.