While the concept of a peer-reviewed cryptocurrency is an interesting one, and certainly has merit, I can't seem to figure out what Cardano offers that existing, and well established, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum don't.
Though, I can't say how this new crypto will handle things, I AM interested in seeing how Nxt/Ardor saga play out. It's much more secure, and stable than btc/ethereum and I think the child chain setup is going to be very popular.
There MAY be an idea of keeping the computing layer private, meaning you can run computations w/o everyone seeing how it works, which is the case with Ethereum block chains. That's just the impression I get from reading their docs.