Update on Pentad

Gives an update on the Pentad amid Twitter talk of reimbursements, noting ADA was 83 cents when it started, making 70 million ADA worth 58 million dollars, now about 18 million.

The Pentad bundled a Midnight and a Cardano side to negotiate better prices, but at today's funding the Cardano integrations cost more than the value given, so the Midnight Foundation pays over 10 million out of pocket for its own integrations.

Iagon had a Fireblocks relationship and negotiated independently of the Pentad for a different integration, then asked to be reimbursed despite not being in the governance proposal.

Everyone in the Pentad is at a loss, with the CF, Midnight Foundation, IOG, Emurgo, and Intersect facing out-of-pocket costs and multi-year liabilities, while IOG is not even a signer yet its leadership still expects reimbursement.

Says the ecosystem must stop shooting itself in the foot with endless drama, and admits he left Twitter to bots because he was part of the bad culture, not the solution.

The Pentad was a reset on delegated executive authority, delivering USDCX 84 days after signing with Circle, already the number one stablecoin on Cardano, plus LayerZero, Pyth, and Dune Analytics.

Coordination requires working together, and threatening to burn the house down, weaponize a community, and leave Cardano for chain agnosticism when you hear bad news is not a healthy ecosystem.

Growing MAUs, TVL, and DeFi needs good-faith coordination and accepting that facts change, recalling he was the strongest advocate of a sovereign wealth fund to convert 100 million ADA to stablecoin at 80 cents.

Pentad V2 should strategically invest in Cardano DApps that will not survive 12 to 24 months without it, via a weighted index the treasury owns, funding listings, roadmaps, and integrations.

The index will have winners and losers, and if those left out try to burn the house down calling Cardano corrupt, the ecosystem can never reach consensus at 25 cent ADA.

To win over VCs, Cardano must show it invests in itself and speaks with a unified voice, which the Pentad did by turning a 4 year deal into a live network integration in 84 days.

A video does not commit the Pentad since he is one of five voices, and every member must absorb the 40 million dollar shortfall between the 58 million intent and today's 18 million value.

Pristine infrastructure alone is not a differentiator, since infrastructure without great utility and experiences is useless, even believing Leios solved the blockchain trilemma.

The infrastructure advantage in Bitcoin DeFi comes via the PoGan program led by Omar Hussein, and Midnight adds privacy, selective disclosure, and abstraction for cross-chain and account abstraction.

Pentad V1 built the roads: highways to Circle and soon LayerZero, tier one oracles, analytics recognition, and custodians, so Midnight could list on tier one exchanges as the first Cardano native asset.

Millions can use those highways only if there is a compelling reason to drive on them, which the next iteration provides, but not amid relentless burn-it-down dissonance.

Praises the four other core entities, Phil from Emurgo, Jack from Intersect, Frederik Gregaard from the Cardano Foundation, and Fahmi Syed from the Midnight Foundation, for acting well in unfair negotiations.

The next stage is the treasury taking ownership of a weighted index of the Cardano DApp and DeFi layer so ADA holders have a vested interest, an and not an either or.

His infrastructure job with Intersect, Pragma, and node builders is making sure the roads handle the traffic, which is what Ouroboros Leios, Hydra, and Peras are for.

Cardano's biggest USP is its governance, since once a vote is taken it becomes the official position, impossible for Bitcoin tackling quantum resistance or Ethereum's founder-held roadmap.

Recalls the fast super-majority vote asking five entities, not the whole ecosystem, to deliver the commercially critical integrations, which they did within budget.

The weighted index is more controversial than a pass-fail vote because it implicitly endorses some ventures, but is the only path since no VC capital is coming and the DeFi layer cannot self-sustain.

The power of on-chain governance is that ADA holders decide, and the discipline is to disagree and commit once a decision is made rather than complain the whole trip.

Cardano is the largest DAO by population and the only top 10 chain with a governance system this sophisticated, but it is useless unless used decisively, and Cardano is exiting the era of infrastructural differentiation.

Cites himself as the example: he took his grievances about core entities to the ecosystem for a year, was told to get in line, so he reset the relationship, and 84 days later Circle was live.

The real problem is DApp, DeFi, and experiences, not infrastructure, and once decisions are made the ecosystem must execute convincingly and quickly to leapfrog competitors.

Failing this is not local: it would show decentralized governance is not competitive with centralized, effectively that dictators beat democracy, which he refuses to believe.

Since 10/10 this is the worst sentiment in crypto in his 15 years, and the way out is being better and different and giving people a reason for hope.

He will propose the next Pentad in coming months, and the ecosystem must debate then decide, because in a world of federated bank chains and threats to ban non-custodial wallets, losing this fight loses freedoms.

Closes that Cardano is out of beta and fully decentralized, and it must prove it can be better than the people it seeks to replace, first to itself.