Cardano FAQs – Learn more about ADA

Everything you need to know about Cardano (ADA) inside of Exodus.

What was the Shelley hard fork?

The Cardano network upgraded from a centralized network to a distributed one through the Shelley protocol on June 29, 2020. This upgrade allowed for more and more nodes to shift towards being run by the Cardano community. Once network participants run the majority of nodes, Cardano will be more decentralized and enjoy greater security and robustness as a result.

Shelley also introduced a delegation and incentives scheme, and a reward system to drive community adoption. As a proof-of-stake network, users stake their ADA to participate in the network. To read more about the Shelley upgrade and what it entails, please refer to the Cardano website here.

How do I enable my Legacy address?

By default, when you open your Cardano wallet inside of Exodus and click on Receive, you will be shown your Cardano Shelley address. To also see your Cardano Legacy address, follow these steps to enable it in your wallet:

Mobile

Open your Cardano wallet and tap on the Settings icon in the top right corner.

Toggle on Legacy Address and return to your Cardano wallet.

Tap on the Receive icon.

Finally, tap the arrows to the left and right of the QR code to see both your Shelley (starts with addr1) and Legacy (starts with Ae2) receive addresses.

Desktop

In your Cardano wallet, a) click the three dots in the top right corner and b) click on the More menu.

Toggle on Legacy Address and return to your Cardano wallet.

Click Receive.

Finally, click the arrows to the left and right of the QR code to see both your Shelley (starts with addr1) and Legacy (starts with Ae2) receive addresses.

What was the Vasil hard fork?

The Cardano blockchain’s Vasil hard fork, on September 22, 2022, brought significant changes to the network.

Major changes to the network included enhancements to the Plutus smart contract platform and greater scalability as described in this tweet from InputOutputHK, which is the blockchain firm that oversees the building, planning, and maintenance of the Cardano network.

Why can’t I export my ADA to another wallet with its private key?

Typically, by exporting your private key you can interact with your tokens in another wallet – but only if it supports the same derivation path (address creation tool) used in Exodus.

Please be very careful with your 12-word secret recovery phrase and private keys, because they control access to your funds. Never share them with anyone, and only import them into platforms that you trust 100%. If you choose to import your secret recovery phrase or private keys into a third-party platform, you do so at your own risk. To find out more, check out this article from our Knowledge Base: How do I keep my money safe?

What is the minimum transaction size for ADA?

There is a minimum transaction size of 1 ADA (not including the network fee) set by the Cardano network. This means that the minimum amount of ADA you can send is 1 ADA (plus the transaction fee). The Cardano network put this minimum in place to reduce the amount of dust on the network and to mitigate the issue of too many small inputs.

At the moment, it is not possible to send less than 1 ADA in any transaction. This applies to staking ADA and claiming ADA rewards, as well as regular sending transactions.

If you try to send less than 1 ADA, you will see an error message that the Transaction amount is too small to send.

Why is my transaction size too large?

The Cardano network also has a maximum transaction size. If you try to send ADA with too many inputs in it then you might go over the size limit and won’t be able to send out your ADA.

If you try to send a transaction that is over the transaction size limit, you will receive an error message that the Transaction size is too large.

This is similar to receiving small mining payouts with other UTXO-based assets.

How does this happen?

The most common way this happens is when trying to claim your generated ADA rewards too often. Each time you claim your ADA rewards, you create another input transaction of a small amount of ADA. Then when you try to send some ADA, your wallet has to put all of the small inputs together which can make it go over the transaction size limit.

How do I fix this?

Luckily for you, Exodus has built-in a feature to help you clean up all your small inputs.

What Exodus does is gather together as many small inputs as it can fit into one transaction then send it to yourself.

For example, Exodus might see you have 100 or more inputs (which is too many). Exodus lets you know this is too many, and you can choose to fix it. Then your wallet will split your inputs into multiple transactions and send them back to you. When this is complete, you will have merged your ADA inputs, which will fix the issue of the transaction size being too large.

This will incur a network transaction fee. To learn more about transaction fees, visit: Does Exodus have transaction fees to send or receive?

If you see this error:

Then please follow these steps:

First, click Fix this.

You can have a look at the Cardano network fee here. Then click Yes, Continue.

You will see a message Merging Cardano transactions. Please do not close Exodus until this process is complete.

Once you see the Transactions Merged screen, then your ADA inputs have been merged, and you can proceed to send out your ADA!

How do I avoid this from happening in the future?

In order to prevent this from happening in the future, you can avoid creating too many inputs. This can mean not claiming your ADA rewards very often. Your ADA rewards will always be at your address waiting to be claimed, and your unclaimed rewards automatically get added to your staking balance, so there is no downside to waiting a bit longer for more ADA rewards to accumulate before you claim your rewards.

What is the deposit confirmation requirement?

When receiving Cardano (ADA) in your wallet, you will need to wait for your incoming transaction to be confirmed before you are able to send it.

What this means is your ADA is locked until it is mined in a block in order for it to be confirmed. In Cardano’s case, wallets keep the funds locked for 5 minutes.

Example:

Say you have a balance of 10 ADA.

One spendable output of full 10 ADA:
In this example when you send 2 ADA to someone, this whole 10 ADA output gets used and the change comes back to you in a new output. Let’s say your fees were 0.01. Your transaction, therefore, sends one output with 10 ADA, and has 2 outputs, one for 2 ADA (the recipient) and one for 7.99 ADA (your change). Because the transaction needs to be confirmed, your change (7.99 ADA), will be locked for 5 minutes.
Two or more spendable outputs of 3 ADA and 7 ADA:
If the original balance was spread over 2 spendable outputs and you just want to send 2 ADA, only one of those outputs would be used, say the 3 ADA output. That means only your change leftover from just the 3 ADA output would be locked for 5 minutes. The other output of 7 ADA is untouched and would not be locked and would be free to spend straight away. Only what is spent needs to wait for 5 minutes.

What is collateral?

To interact with a smart contract on the Cardano network, you must first set collateral.

Setting collateral means setting aside some of your Cardano (ADA) to cover network fees if a transaction fails.

Examples of interacting with Cardano smart contracts include using a Web3 app to purchase an NFT, and swapping Cardano tokens using a DEX.

If a transaction involving a smart contract fails, collateral compensates the node that tried to confirm the transaction for its work. Collateral won’t be used if your transaction succeeds.

With Exodus, you might be prompted to set ADA collateral whenever you interact with Cardano Web3 apps. Collateral is not locked and can be spent at any time.

When prompted to set collateral, take a moment to a) read the messaging, b) note the amount of ADA you approve to be reserved as collateral, then c) click Approve.

Why are some of my ADA locked?

If you hold Cardano tokens or NFTs at your Cardano address or interact with Web3 apps or dApps, you might have noticed that some of your ADA are locked.

This is due to the Cardano network requiring you to lock away some ADA for every token and NFT your wallet holds. The amount of ADA locked is not fixed and can change depending on how many tokens and NFTs you hold.

In addition, collateral is required when interacting with smart contracts on the Cardano network.

You can unlock your Cardano balance by withdrawing your Cardano tokens and NFTs and unlocking your collateral.

How do I see my locked balance inside of Exodus?

The amount of ADA you have locked will be shown to you inside the Cardano wallet on Exodus Desktop.

Desktop

Can I send Cardano tokens or Cardano NFTs to Exodus?

Exodus currently supports Cardano NFTs on Exodus Web3 Wallet and Mobile. To learn more, visit the article: What is the NFT Gallery in Exodus?

Custom Cardano tokens are supported on Exodus Web3 Wallet, Desktop, and Mobile. For a guide on how to add Cardano tokens, visit: How do I add a custom token?

Currently, only Cardano tokens available on Muesliswap can be added as custom tokens. If you’ve sent unavailable Cardano tokens to Exodus, please contact Exodus Support.

What should I do if I accidentally sent an unsupported Cardano NFT to Exodus Desktop?

Currently, Exodus Desktop does not support Cardano NFTs.

If you’ve sent a Cardano NFT to Exodus Desktop, then you can access your NFTs by syncing Exodus Desktop to Exodus Mobile or Exodus Web3 Wallet.

Once synced, you can access your Cardano NFTs from the NFT Gallery.

Exodus is not affiliated with any third-party platforms, external links, or any other third-party resources mentioned in this article. As such, Exodus cannot guarantee the performance of third-party products or services, or that the steps shown and the information provided will always be accurate.

Questions? Need more assistance? Send us an email at support@qadirah.com. We promise quick human help!