Name: The Cardano Field Guide
Author: Full Time Crypto

Before you start

What this is

You can delegate without handing over the keys.

Cardano is a proof-of-stake network. ADA is its native asset. Stake pools help make blocks. Delegation should not require your recovery phrase.

This book is for a beginner who has heard “peer reviewed” and wants the machine, not the slogan.

Smart contracts arrived in a later era. The 2017 mainnet birthday is not the same day as DeFi apps.

Educational information only. Not financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice. Dates, supply figures, and court records in this book are taken from the sources listed at the back. If a fact is not sourced, it is not printed as a fact. Unverified items stay open.

How this book is built

Day the coin was born

29 September 2017 (Byron mainnet)

Cardano’s Byron mainnet is dated 29 September 2017 in Cardano’s own glossary and hard-fork table. The 2015–2017 voucher sale is not the chain birthday.

Name the event you are dating. “Launched” without a layer is how slogans start.
Event	Date	What that date is
Voucher sale (not mainnet)	October 2015 – start of January 2017, Asia	cardano.org/genesis. 94.45% of gross BTC sales were from Japan. Do not use this window as the chain birthday.
Three entities created	2015 project split	IOHK, EMURGO, Cardano Foundation — “separation of powers.”
Byron / mainnet / ada	29 September 2017	Epoch 0. Launch of the Cardano mainnet and introduction of the ada cryptocurrency.

Use 29 September 2017 for “Cardano launched.” Do not use the voucher window as the chain birthday.

Launch total was 31,112,484,646 ada, not 45 billion. The rest sits in the reserve. The 45 billion figure is maxLovelaceSupply, a Shelley genesis global constant outside protocolParams, plus Constitution Tenet 10. It is not an updatable governance knob and not physics.

If someone sells you “Cardano 2.0 tokens,” stop. Upgrades change rules. They do not mint a souvenir ticker you must buy. Smart contracts arrived with Alonzo, 12 September 2021 — not in 2017.

People and projects

Who is behind it

Do not collapse Input Output (IOHK / IOG), EMURGO, and the Cardano Foundation. The 2018 open letter: three legal entities “so that the failure of one legal entity … could not jeopardise or destroy the Cardano project.”

Charles Hoskinson co-founded Input Output. IO’s bio also calls him a co-founder of Ethereum. That is IO’s bio, not an Ethereum Foundation roster. He is not a king who can rewrite your wallet.

Stake-pool operators are often independent. A YouTube “ADA expert” is not an official role. Homepage “first to be founded on peer-reviewed research” is official marketing. Ouroboros at Crypto 2017 is sourced. Uniqueness versus all other academic chains is unverified. This book does not print “first peer-reviewed blockchain” as an independent fact.

Place and lineage

Where it came from

Cardano came from a 2015 split into research (Input Output), commercial adoption (EMURGO), and a Swiss foundation, then a 2017 Byron mainnet.

Genesis allocation is on cardano.org/genesis: public sale 25,927,070,538 ada; Foundation 648,176,761; EMURGO 2,074,165,644; IOHK 2,463,071,701.

Byron was federated. Shelley (29 July 2020) is the named transition toward a decentralized system. A Cardano hard fork “does not signify division”; nodes switch at an agreed slot.

Keep these separate

What it is and is not

It is

A proof-of-stake blockchain using the Ouroboros family of protocols.
A network whose native asset is ADA, with a stated maximum of 45 billion ADA.
A system where you can delegate stake and still keep the keys in your wallet.

It is not

A network that requires you to give a pool your recovery phrase.
Ethereum with a different paint. The accounting model (eUTXO) is different.
A guarantee that a stake pool is honest or that a native asset is useful.

The machine

How it works

Agreement method: Ouroboros proof of stake. Time is split into epochs and slots. A stake pool may be elected to make a block.
Units: ADA. Lovelace is the small unit (1 ADA = 1,000,000 lovelace).
Issuance: Stated maximum 45 billion ADA as a Shelley genesis global constant (maxLovelaceSupply) and Constitution Tenet 10 — not a protocolParams knob. Launch circulating plus genesis entities: 31,112,484,646 ada. This book does not print a live circulating figure.

Cardano’s extended UTXO model means a transaction consumes outputs and creates new ones, including when scripts run. It is not Ethereum’s account model.

Native assets can live on Cardano without a separate “ERC-20-style” contract for every token. You still must verify the policy ID.

Delegation points your stake at a pool. The ADA should stay in an address you control if you used a normal wallet. A site that needs your phrase to “delegate” is a thief.

A payment, in order

A wallet builds and signs a transaction.
Nodes check it against the current rules.
A selected stake-pool slot leader publishes a block.
Others validate the block.
Rewards, if any, follow the protocol’s accounting—not a pool’s Instagram.

Keys, not cookbooks

How you send and hold it

The coins are recorded on the network. The wallet holds the secret that can move them. If someone else has that secret, they can usually move the coins.

A recovery phrase is a list of ordinary words that can rebuild the keys. Nobody who is helping you should need it. A support chat, a giveaway, or a “wallet check” that asks for it is trying to take the coins.

Custodial accounts (an exchange or app that holds the keys for you) can freeze, limit, or lose access. Self-custody gives you control and the full job of backup. Neither choice is magic.

This chapter is not a crime cookbook. It does not teach mixing, tumbling, fake identities, or how to hide funds from a lawful process. It teaches you not to donate your keys to a stranger.

Cardano addresses have their own formats. Do not send ADA to an Ethereum address.

Hardware wallets and official software lists are on cardano.org and the wallet makers’ own sites.

Safer habits

Download wallet software only from a site or store listing you found yourself, not from a message.
Write the recovery phrase on paper or another offline backup. Do not photograph it, email it, or type it into a website.
Send a tiny test first. Confirm the network, the asset, and the destination.
For a company account, turn on a second factor that is not only a text message if you can.
Stop if anyone asks for the phrase, a remote-control app, or a “verification deposit.”
Delegate only inside a wallet you opened yourself.
Verify a native asset’s policy ID, not only its display name.

This book does not tell you how to hide funds, evade a law, or defeat an investigation. A wallet lesson is about not losing your own keys—not about becoming invisible.

Read this twice

What can go wrong

Fake pools and fake support

Nobody needs your phrase to “fix rewards.”

Wrong chain

ADA does not travel as ether.

Smart-contract era apps

Scripts and bridges add risk that Byron-era payments did not have.

Governance confusion

On-chain voting tools can be impersonated. Find them from official docs.

United States readers only

Law and tax notes

These notes are for United States readers only. Other countries have different rules.

The Internal Revenue Service treats convertible virtual currency as property for federal tax purposes. That is the starting point in IRS Notice 2014-21. Later IRS pages, including the virtual-currency frequently asked questions, expand on reporting. They do not turn this book into tax advice.

Selling crypto, trading one crypto for another, or using crypto to pay for goods or services can be a taxable event. Receiving crypto as wages, as a trade or business payment, or in some airdrop or hard-fork situations can also create income. See Notice 2014-21 and Revenue Ruling 2019-24 for the IRS’s own words on forks and airdrops.

Keep records: date, amount in U.S. dollars, what you received or spent, and which service or wallet you used. A lost key is not automatically a deductible story you can invent later.

A listing, an exchange product, or a court remark about someone else is not your tax result.

Staking rewards can be taxable. This book does not compute your reward income.

This is not legal or tax advice. Rules change. Read the linked primary pages and talk to a licensed professional about your own facts.

This coin’s extra pages

Eras and eUTXO

Cardano shipped in named eras. Byron is the 2017 mainnet start. Alonzo, 12 September 2021, added Plutus scripts. Learn the era only so you do not buy a fake “upgrade token.”

eUTXO means scripts and assets travel with outputs. That is a design choice with different developer tradeoffs than Ethereum. It is not automatically safer for a beginner who clicks a random dApp.

Write it down

NOTES

Write the stake-pool ticker you chose and the wallet you used—not a phrase.

More room

NOTES

Words used in this book

GLOSSARY

Read these before the check-the-terms pages. A word is only useful if you can say it back in your own words.

ADA: Cardano’s native asset.
Lovelace: One millionth of an ADA.
Stake pool: An operator that can produce blocks. You may delegate to one.
Delegation: Pointing stake at a pool without giving away spend keys.
Epoch: A timed period in Ouroboros.
eUTXO: Extended unspent-output accounting, including scripts and assets.
Policy ID: The identifier for a native asset family.
Byron: The first mainnet era, launched September 29, 2017.

Check yourself

CHECK THE TERMS

Circle one answer. The answer key is on the next pages. Do not peek until you have tried.

Cardano Byron mainnet date used here?
1. September 29, 2016
2. September 29, 2017
3. July 30, 2015
Must you give a pool your recovery phrase to delegate?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Only for big pools
45 billion ADA is…
1. Today’s exact wallet total, minted at launch
2. A genesis global constant plus a constitutional tenet; launch total was 31,112,484,646
3. The premine
eUTXO is the same as Ethereum accounts.
1. True
2. False
3. Only after Goguen
Who should get your phrase?
1. IOHK support
2. Nobody
3. EMURGO
A later era means a new ADA token.
1. True
2. False
3. Only if Hoskinson tweets
How do you identify a native asset?
1. The nickname
2. The policy ID
3. The color of the logo
Ouroboros is…
1. A bridge
2. Cardano’s proof-of-stake protocol family
3. An exchange

After you try

ANSWER KEY

B. September 29, 2017 Byron mainnet is September 29, 2017.
B. No Delegation keeps spend keys in your wallet.
B. A genesis global constant plus a constitutional tenet; launch total was 31,112,484,646 Not 45 billion minted on day one. Not an updatable protocolParams knob.
B. False Different accounting model.
B. Nobody Nobody.
B. False Eras upgrade rules, not a souvenir ticker.
B. The policy ID Names are copied.
B. Cardano’s proof-of-stake protocol family Consensus design.

Check our work

Sources

Primary pages first. In-repo research packs under docs/field-guides/ were used as source wells. Payhip product blurbs were not used as facts. If a pack left a gap UNVERIFIED, this book leaves it open.

The Cardano Field Guide

What this is

Contents

Day the coin was born

Who is behind it

Where it came from

What it is and is not

It is

It is not

How it works

A payment, in order

How you send and hold it

Safer habits

What can go wrong

Fake pools and fake support

Wrong chain

Smart-contract era apps

Governance confusion

Law and tax notes

Eras and eUTXO

NOTES

NOTES

GLOSSARY

CHECK THE TERMS

ANSWER KEY

Sources