Cardano vs Stellar

Cardano uses the Ouroboros Proof‑of‑Stake protocol and an Extended‑UTxO ledger that enables deterministic smart contracts in Plutus and Aiken. Its ‘Basho’ scaling era introduced Hydra Head sidechains capable of 1000 TPS per head, and Mithril light‑client proofs for mobile wallets. Over 1 500 stake pools secure the network and participate in on‑chain treasury governance.

Stellar is a payments‑focused blockchain that uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a federated Byzantine agreement where each node chooses its own quorum slices. Anchors issue fiat‑backed tokens, and Stellar’s built‑in DEX offers path payments that can hop through multiple assets in a single transaction. The 2023 Soroban upgrade added WebAssembly smart contracts, enabling on‑chain AMMs, lending and other DeFi primitives.