Cardano wallet

What is Cardano (ADA)?

ADA does not sit in an account row the way an EVM balance does. Cardano uses an extended UTXO ledger, so your wallet balance is the sum of unspent outputs, and a transaction consumes whole outputs and creates new ones. Two consequences matter when you hold ADA. First, every output has to carry a minimum amount of ADA to exist, so when someone sends you a Cardano native token it arrives bundled with a little ADA that stays locked in that output until you spend it - a token-holding address can never be emptied to exactly zero. Second, fees are always paid in ADA itself, never in a separate gas asset.

A Cardano address (the long addr1... string) has two parts: a payment key that authorises spending and a staking key that decides which pool the balance is delegated to. Delegation is the part that surprises people coming from other chains - the ADA never moves, never leaves your address, and stays fully spendable while it is delegated. There is no lock-up transaction to reverse.

Watch the ticker. ADA also exists as a pegged BEP2 asset on BNB Beacon Chain, issued by a bridge rather than by Cardano. It is not the chain's own coin, it cannot be delegated, and it uses BNB Beacon Chain addresses rather than addr1 addresses. Supported networks in Tangem (2): Cardano, BNB Beacon Chain. The app tracks each of those balances separately and names the network a transfer leaves on, which is the thing to read before you let the card sign - the two ADA forms are not interchangeable, and knowing which one you actually hold is half the battle.