Glossary · Ledger

Ada.

The native currency of Cardano, named after Ada Lovelace.

In depth

Ada is the unit users see; it is the fee currency, the staking currency, and the default value carried in every UTxO. Behind the scenes the protocol works in lovelace, the smallest indivisible unit (1 ada = 1,000,000 lovelace).

Example

Sending "10 ada" to a friend is actually moving 10,000,000 lovelace on the ledger.

Next on this path

  1. Lovelace The smallest unit of ada. 1 ada = 1,000,000 lovelace.
  2. Transaction fee The ada paid to the network for including a transaction. Deterministic on Cardano.