Cardano (ADA) and Ethereum (ETH): a comparison
Cardano and Ethereum set side by side: how the quotes moved, how the protocols are built and what tasks each one was made for.
Specifications of ADA and ETH
| Cardano (ADA) | Ethereum (ETH) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.179252 | $2,118.59 |
| Ticker | ADA | ETH |
| Type | coin of its own network | coin of its own network |
| Launched | 2017 | 2015 |
| Built by | Charles Hoskinson | Vitalik Buterin |
| Consensus | Proof of Stake (Ouroboros) | Proof of Stake |
| Block | ~20 sec | ~12 sec |
| Supply cap | 45 B ADA | no cap |
| Privacy | transfers are public | transfers are public |
| In circulation | 37.58 B ADA | 122.21 M ETH |
| Market cap | $6.74 B | $258.91 B |
| Rank by cap | #18 | #2 |
Source: CoinGecko, Nov 10, 2026 12:57. How these numbers are counted
Price movement: ADA and ETH
The start of the period is taken as 100 for both prices: the chart shows the difference in movement, not the quotes themselves.
| Period | ADA | ETH |
|---|---|---|
| 7 days | −6.23% | −5.29% |
| 30 days | −29.02% | −14.9% |
| 90 days | −5.46% | +13.34% |
The link between their daily moves over the quarter is 0.8 (they travel together).
The tasks ADA and ETH were made for
- Contracts and applicationsCardano and Ethereum
How Cardano and Ethereum are built
How Cardano works
The consensus is called Ouroboros, a block appears roughly every 20 seconds, and accounting follows an extended UTXO model. ADA is delegated to stake pools, and the coins are not locked while it is. The supply cap is 45 billion ADA.
What Cardano is for
ADA pays fees, is staked to protect the network and is used in Cardano DeFi and NFT applications.
How Ethereum works
In the autumn of 2022 the network moved from mining to Proof of Stake: blocks are proposed and confirmed by validators who have locked up ETH, and a new slot opens every 12 seconds. Contract code is executed by the EVM virtual machine. Part of the fee on every transaction is destroyed, so the final supply of the coin depends on how actively the network is used.
What Ethereum is for
ETH is needed to pay for gas, is posted as collateral in DeFi, takes part in staking and serves as the unit of account of the ecosystem. Layer-2 networks — Arbitrum, Optimism and others — also charge their fees in ETH, so the coin serves a sizeable part of the crypto market.