If you are interested to the previous posts of this series, check it out here:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Cardano (ADA)
• Binance Coin (BNB)
• Tether (USDT)
• XRP (XRP)
• Dogecoin (DOGE)
• USD Coin (USDC)
• Polkadot (DOT)
• Solana (SOL)
• Uniswap (UNI)
• Binance USD (BUSD)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Chainlink (LINK)
• Terra (LUNA)
• Internet Computer (ICP)
• Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
• Polygon (MATIC)
• Algorand (ALGO)
• VeChain (VET)
• Stellar Lumens (XLM)
• Harmony (ONE)
• Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR)
• Tron (TRX)
• Cosmos (ATOM)
• Axie Infinity (AXS)
• Tezos (XTZ)

What is it?

Ergo (ERG) is a programmable blockchain with advanced smart contract features that are ideal for the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry. Ergo is one of the coins that use the PoW (Proof of Work) protocol (like Bitcoin). Considering that Ethereum will soon leave the PoW to switch to the PoS, Ergo is one of the coins that is attracting the attention of miners in the future. Ergo was founded by Charles Hoskinson's "favorite technologist", Alex Chepurnoy, who helped in the development of Cardano and Chainlink.

How does it work?

Ergo's main goal is to provide financial contracts efficiently and securely, so that people can use them in a decentralized way and without the need for prior trust. The PoW protocol is compatible with Cardano's PoS, so ERG can make a great contribution to all developers in the Cardano ecosystem. Ergo is the first blockchain to adopt the smart contract language in the same eUTxO (extended UTXO) model as Cardano, enabling compatibility with Proof of Work. Although PoS is a very secure protocol, some smart contracts may require the theoretical security features of PoW's consent for part of their execution. The bigger a dApp, if it is running collateralized DeFi, the greater the stakes it has at its disposal, and since this is not yet fully solved in the Proof of Stake protocol, it is a weak point. Ergo brings the proven security of PoW, with sufficient security for all the most complex DApp implementations on top of the common UTxO model.

In conclusion, the main strengths and objectives of Ergo are the following:

• Ergo will bring all the benefits of Proof of Work to users of the Cardano ecosystem.
• Ergo is the first blockchain to adopt a smart contract language similar to the UTxO model used by Cardano, taking Proof of Work compatibility to a whole new level.
• Long-term scalability of the dApps with the possibility of parallelization of the dApps.
• More advanced encryption with sigma protocols: highly flexible and composable cryptographic signatures.
• The headless framework of dApps.
• Oracle Pool: Layered pools of oracle pools with consensus deviation control that open up a whole new world of applications.
• Exchange system on Ergo.

Where to store it?

The best hot wallets for ERG are Ergowallet.io, and Yoroi. Ledger support for ERG will be available soon

Pros&Cons

*DISCLAIMER* These lists are subjective, it depends from person to person

Pros

1. PoW is great for security
2. Scalability
3. Great devs team
4. Smart contracts

Cons

1. Even if ERG has great fundamentals, the adoption is still low
2. Half of network hashrate is on nanopool