AMA 08/14/2020

Opens the Friday night AMA and welcomes Ethereum Classic community members into the show for the first time.

Recaps the week's shipped software and the decentralization parameter moving toward 0.9 as pools start making blocks.

Signs new grants including the Mune project bringing an imperative flavor to Plutus.

Estimates Yoroi iOS is two to four weeks out, noting Emurgo controls its own release schedule.

Explains why he wants to save Ethereum Classic, the original chain he founded with Vitalik and Gavin in 2013.

Frames interoperability as Cardano's third pillar, citing wrapped Litecoin and wrapped Ethereum Classic concepts.

The Ethereum Classic Mantis team is fully independent from the Cardano team and always will be.

IOHK hand wrote its own EVM in Scala from scratch to learn where Cardano needs to be better.

Updates on the Ethiopia digital vouchers bid, expects to subcontract after a rival underbid IOHK.

Confirms ongoing talks with Charlie Lee on a Litecoin improvement proposal for wrapped assets.

Shelley has been live since July 29 with over 100 stake pools already making blocks.

Bittrex is in final internal QA before enabling ADA withdrawals.

Reacts to a surprise Shopify GitHub repository referencing ADA, says he will look into it.

He is not worried about competing projects, jokes about the quiet 'molten tar monsters'.

Promises a 1.19 update to fix Daedalus wallet's slow 20 minute startup time.

Mantis is the Ethereum Classic full node IOHK built.

Confirms Ledger Nano X support is coming via Yoroi and soon Daedalus, with staking to follow.

He personally reads fan letters sent to him.

Jokes about the YAM protocol collapse as proof that formal methods matter.

Teases personal travel stories from Cambodia, Mongolia, and Africa involving an RPG and a tank.

Clarifies Ledger hardware wallet support isn't yet in Yoroi and recommends Yoroi light in the meantime.

Plans for an ERC20 token converter tied to finishing the native asset standard.

A Ledger and Trezor firmware update built specifically for stake pool operators.

Warns that high DeFi yields are suspicious, asking 'for every buyer there's a seller, so who's buying from you'.

A blog post on raising the k parameter is coming as the team models the change.

Reassures listeners that IOHK only runs 20 of 1000 pools and most ADA remains unstaked, mostly in Japan.

Envisions a Cardano Foundation SPO certification standard shown via Atala Prism credentials in Daedalus.

Recommends Python for absolute beginner programmers, citing the book Think Python.

He will eventually set up and announce his own stake pool.

Calls Ethereum fees too high and the system broken, pointing to Eth2 as a replacement effort.

Responds to Adam Back's Ponzi scheme comment, says proof of work maximalists fear proof of stake's rise.

There are no major acquisition plans underway.

Praises Harmony and Rob Viglione, stays open to future collaboration.

Rebuts claims that Cardano is stagnant, arguing KPIs and decentralization progress matter more than price.

The hard fork combinator lets Cardano validate two rule sets at once, a unique industry capability.

The mission is building for a billion users and tells pure speculators to go play elsewhere.

The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Forbes, and Fortune all covered the virtual summit.

Reports the Mongolia air pollution pilot stalled after COVID halted in person work.

Gives a personal update on his pet geese.

A Japanese ISP forking Yoroi light code to build a mesh network and suggests applying to a Catalyst style fund.

Binance reached out about ADA staking support.

Qeditas, a planned marketplace for mechanized mathematical proofs built on homotopy type theory.

The story behind his gladiator shoulder tattoo and its lesson about hubris.

Follows up on his security fundamentals video, flags a YubiKey GPG backup bug he is investigating.

The community would decide Cardano's path if IOHK's contract were not extended.

Teases a major 2021 announcement, likening it to Steve Jobs withholding iPhone details before launch.

Chainlink's market cap exceeding Cardano's, says markets are often irrational in the short term.

Ouroboros Praos handles VRF based block collisions and micro forks.

Plans to blend a VDF with the VRF and explore a post quantum VRF for Ouroboros.

Marlowe lets non programmers build Cardano smart contracts by dragging blocks together.

Runs a personal web scraper to track mentions of himself and Cardano across forums including 4chan.

Compares ignoring internet trolls to watching thoughts pass like cars during meditation.

Plans to start painting Bob Ross style segments on the weekly show.

Lists Daedalus roadmap items: multisig, QR credential transfers, hardware and voting centers, and a smart contract CLI.

Plans to NFT and raffle off his paintings to ADA holders.

IOHK has about 250 employees, with 20 to 30 based in the US.

A PHP developer that imperative Plutus, now in development, will ease the transition to smart contracts.

He's not worried about Polkadot or Cosmos, staying focused on reaching a billion users.

Gives a brief take on the Beirut Lebanon explosion, pointing to improperly stored fertilizer.

Hawaiian shirt banter turns into an offhand remark about his ex wife.

Hydra and sharding are complementary, with Hydra adding throughput without lowering security.

Car talk: says he hates Dodge and Ram but drives GMC diesel trucks.

Banters about his wife's TikTok habit.

The mid engine Corvette.

He likes his steak medium rare, dry aged 30 days.

Celebrates a small 116,000 ADA pool making a block and promises fairer rewards for small stakers.

Pushes back on Dan Larimer's claim that Cardano can't handle non DeFi applications.

He passed on Tesla's IPO and thinks the stock is overpriced now.

Frames Cardano's mission as giving billions of people economic identity, distinct from ETC's code as law focus.

Recounts years of relentless attacks while building Cardano and calls himself a fanatic for surviving it.

Lists personal side projects and hobbies: aquaculture, greenhouses, a game studio, fast cars, and skydiving.

Ties his life philosophy to ikigai and kaizen, quoting Viktor Frankl on finding meaning worth fighting for.

A relentless pursuit of perfection: more stake pools, quantum resistance, and a better treasury.

Community feedback keeps improving his security videos, from YubiKey to password manager advice.

Names Hibiki 25 as the best Japanese whiskey he's tasted, from a Tokyo cigar bar.

Responds to a fraud accusation by pointing to Shelley's live block production.

Argues the legacy financial system is rigged against the middle class, citing slow transfers and unequal credit access.

Continues arguing the old financial system, not crypto, is the real fraud and will eventually collapse or be abandoned.

To apply to the still forming C Fund via a temporary invest at iohk.io email.

Rebuts fraud accusations over ADA's market cap, noting IOHK never sold or traded ADA.

Persistent misinformation that Cardano has no code or that Shelley never shipped.

Reflects that crypto is a neutral industry mirroring human nature, with Bitcoin and ETC as symbols of past failures.

Money as a collective delusion through a story about paying a Swiss consultant in Bitcoin.

Extends the argument to power itself as social fiction, citing the Soviet collapse when the army stopped obeying orders.

He will never renounce US citizenship or relocate for tax reasons despite pressure from wealthy peers.

Argues a well informed, critical population is what dictatorships fear most.

Dismisses a troll's claim that the Daedalus wallet doesn't work.

Plans for pool GUI software, noting SPOs already built their own dashboards.

Confirms Cardano will need oracles eventually.

Calls socialism and communism 'great evils,' arguing no one has rights to the fruits of others' labor.

Shows off his LED light up shoes on stream.

Confirms he has a written succession plan, a 'yellow folder,' in case something happens to him.

Recalls being introduced to cryptography via a CU Boulder course and recommends John Katz's textbook.

Credits capitalism, not socialism, for lifting people from poverty, citing North versus South Korea.

Calls the 2020 election theater, saying real change comes through economics rather than the ballot box.

Frames Cardano's mission as inherently political, comparing Libra's backlash and Gaddafi's gold dinar.

Crypto isn't about getting rich but about replacing top down institutions with bottom up ones.

Dismisses the Unity 2020 ticket idea as naive idealism, says voting won't fix a rigged system.

Recommends Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life as a leadership starting point.

Uses the book Flatland to explain what a fourth spatial dimension might look like.

Confirms IOHK rebranded to IO Global with a new Wyoming subsidiary address.

Confirms NIPoPoWs and proof of stake side chains are feasible for Cardano, citing the Gazi Kiayias paper.

He enjoys both Tarantino and Coen Brothers films.

His passion project video game stays a low priority weekend hobby behind Cardano.

He'll do something with Alex Mashinsky and Celsius eventually.

Brushes off a question about a Kanye West coin.

Credits Michael Pollan's book for a new interest in float tanks and psychedelics research.

Dan Larimer likely believes his own claims about Cardano even if they aren't true.

Teases a $1 million bounty tied to finishing the shielded QR code feature.

Picks Nietzsche as his favorite among Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Hegel.

Signs off for the weekend after a two hour AMA.