AMA 04/26/2020

Opens the AMA from Colorado, reflecting on 2020 as a strange pandemic year while noting Cardano development has kept moving forward regardless.

Daedalus 1.0 has shipped, most crash reports trace back to unsupported Windows 7 or 8 installs, and only Windows 8.1 and 10 are officially supported.

Reports Daedalus sync times mostly land between 50 minutes and 1 hour 20 minutes, with rare outlier reports of 12 to 15 hours hard to reproduce internally.

Daedalus 1.0 feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, pointing to heavy relay bandwidth and low helpdesk ticket volume as proof people are syncing fine.

ITN inflation splits into a rewards bucket and a treasury bucket, and that current mainnet transaction fees are simply burned rather than going to IOHK or the treasury until Shelley.

Recounts spending only six intense months at Ethereum in 2013 and 2014 doing legal, marketing, and organizational work, sleeping on concrete floors while helping set up the Swiss entity.

Asks journalists to retire the co-founder of Ethereum framing, describing the toxicity around that narrative and his decision to limit interviews with reporters who keep using it.

Argues designing protocol foundations that can handle a billion users matters more than short term adoption or price comparisons, noting Ethereum's own rebuild proves Cardano's research lead.

Clarifies a Coin Telegraph interview that got twisted into a Cardano versus Ethereum attack piece, where his real point was that Casper's slow rollout came from its founder learning proof of stake on the job.

Addresses reddit backlash over hiring Root9B as an external auditor, noting its staff came from three letter agencies and stresses their audit work was thorough and professional.

Describes IOHK's internal audit team Be Cryptic plus in house cryptographers, and says the team can design and implement novel primitives like new elliptic curves or a custom zk-SNARK from scratch.

He was unaware of a Cardano Classic community until seeing a reddit thread, wishes it well, but doubts it is easy to fork and sustain a whole cryptocurrency.

Outlines that Shelley's rollout will follow the same telegraphed blueprint used for the Byron reboot, while a bigger effort is underway to decentralize software releases after Goguen.

Warns against letting protocol development become an exclusionary ivory tower, citing how Bitcoin's culture mocked an early sidechain and proof style proposal from one of his own researchers that was later vindicated with a PhD and papers underpinning ideas like fly client.

Announces the Cardano Foundation's CIP committee will present its improvement proposal process at the Shelley virtual summit, alongside updates on Voltaire voting and decentralized software update work with Guardtime and IBM.

Floats bundling something like git directly with Cardano software so the canonical source code repository itself is controlled in a decentralized way instead of by one owner.

Proposes a simple litmus test for healthy decentralized governance, namely whether the system keeps moving forward with a genuine diversity of contributors rather than the same five people repeating themselves.

Expects one more audit before the end of 2020 around the Goguen work, and favors settling into a quarterly or biannual audit cadence going forward if the IOHK contract is renewed.

Rejects the elitist idea that ordinary people cannot be trusted with self-governance, arguing that treating people with dignity produces better collective outcomes than paternalistic gatekeeping.

Frames Cardano as a protocol for the people by the people, where uncomfortable but necessary governance debates are worth the slowdown because everyone holds equal stake in the outcome.

Pushes back on a troll comment claiming he never appears with colleagues, pointing to monthly Cardano360 episodes, IOHK blog posts, and staff active in Telegram as evidence of broader team communication.

Reacts to rumors of Tezos's founders stepping back, calling it a healthy sign if the ecosystem can thrive without them, and says personal animosity from Tezos has blocked collaboration with Cardano.

Confirms ITN test rewards become withdrawable at the Shelley hard fork, per the transition process explained in an earlier video.

Previews a dedicated episode on setting the minimum stake pool pledge parameter for mainnet, balancing DDoS protection against decentralization since pledge locking also feeds into Hydra and future voting mechanics.

Responds to Trump's disinfectant remark by noting broken trust means every offhand comment gets read in the worst possible light, comparing it to a bitter divorce where nothing said gets the benefit of the doubt.

Pitches redesigning White House press conferences around randomly selected journalists bound by a code of conduct instead of the current combative shouting format.

Details his pet peeves on effective communication at IOHK, from banning oversized 15 person meetings to requiring closed loop confirmation and iron manning arguments instead of straw manning them.

Explains why he holds these AMAs, using the Root9B episode as an example of addressing controversy head on instead of hiding behind a press release.

Calls the COVID press conferences a case study in structures set up to fail, arguing accountability requires clear ownership of tasks rather than committees where everyone and no one is in charge.

Confirms the McCann led brand refresh and new Cardano website will roll out alongside Shelley in May and June.

Accepts correction from a nurse viewer that hemodialysis does not remove viruses or bacteria, admitting he is not a doctor.

Outlines how displaced diaspora populations, lacking stable identity documents, are a natural fit for identity plus payment systems, with plans in northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia likely following the farmer voucher work.

Recalls a great trip to Porto and Lisbon for an IOHK summit.

Hopes the rumored death of Kim Jong Un is true, calling the regime's concentration camps and torture a Stalinist holdover the world would be better off without.

Jokes that Elon Musk built PayPal so you never know, he could be Satoshi.

Names the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as his favorite museum, saying it takes three days to see properly.

Mocks Dan Larimer's announcement of a tokenless implementation, quipping about the four billion dollars raised and comparing his exit to the dolphins leaving in Hitchhiker's Guide.

Jokes that picking between Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump is like choosing between a kick in the face and a pile of manure, saying he is not a fan of the Trumps.

The story of buying the intellectual property to his favorite childhood RPG Legends of Valor after discovering decades later it was never finished because the studio ran out of money.

Praises modern engines like Unity and Unreal plus crowdfunded successes like Pillars of Eternity and Hellblade, and notes Legends of Valor inspired Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series including Skyrim.

He has never bothered changing his old reddit username that references Ethereum.

Chats about favorite game engines including Unreal, CryEngine, and Unity, and floats building a Cardano themed browser game with Unity WebGL.

Sees strong potential for tying MMORPG items to a blockchain as scarce tradable assets, pointing to real world markets like China's World of Warcraft gold farming as proof of demand.

Gets asked for fasting tips as a viewer starts their first fast.

Explains how geothermal HVAC works using underground loop arrays for heating, cooling, and driveway snow melt, and says he is installing one on his farm despite the roughly 30 to 40 thousand dollar cost.

Gives a quick update that his hay farm is about to get a new irrigation system.

Calls the new AMD Ryzen laptop processors the best ever made.

John O'Connor is deep in negotiations on a major deal to bring six million Ethiopian farmers onto the Cardano blockchain.

Praises AMD CEO Lisa Su for turning around a dying company against Intel's monopoly, though gives Nvidia the edge on real time ray tracing.

Shows off a real graphene branded 10000 milliamp power bank that charges in about 30 minutes without heating up.

His hydroponic peppers are growing well and that aquaponics is a longer term goal once he gets more into controlled environment agriculture.

Praises Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network for solving high bandwidth low latency internet from orbit and says he would love to beta test it.

He has never smoked cannabis and never will.

Confirms Ethereum projects have reached out about migrating to Cardano, expecting the pace to pick up quickly once Cardano's clean roadmap contrasts with Ethereum 2.0's messier one.

Lockdown has scrapped his planned Africa press tour after Goguen and that not being able to travel makes him sad.

Reveals a team has spent over a month on a new Cardano connected project that will be announced at the Shelley virtual summit.

The Horizon team led by Roman Oleynikov has been a productive long running partnership, while Storm fizzled out since he never actually did advisory work for them.

Admits he plays piano, though not very well.

Expects the Bitcoin halving to happen as scheduled without much drama.

Says he is working on painting, watches Bob Ross constantly, and jokes about doing a future stream styled like Joy of Painting.

Shrugs off whether IOHK will ever go public, saying maybe someday.

Praises an unnamed colleague as their best performer, someone who takes on too much yet somehow pulls it all off and has a future as a CEO.

Brushes off an old joking challenge to a boxing match as ancient history and confirms he likes fishing.

Confirms he still plans to visit Antarctica, just not until 2021.

Welcomes a critic's new video trashing Cardano, saying he is glad such content exists publicly and is admissible in court.

Recognizes military slang for a secure housing unit and confirms Reykjavik in Iceland was awesome.

Announces he is about to start a new five day fast beginning Monday.

Shares visiting the Aspen restaurant where Hunter S Thompson used to do cocaine off the table, recalling him as a special if crazy guy.

Says quarantine has him skipping shaving, and jokes he is rich enough not to have to care so he can focus on philosophical things.

Confirms in the spirit of Bob Ross that there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents.

Names Jacobson's in Toronto as his favorite steakhouse, a go to spot when visiting the Polymath or IOHK teams there.

He loves Athens and has traveled all throughout the Greek islands, noting IOHK has an office in Greece.

He will do another TED talk only at the end of his career when he retires.

Recommends Zen Mind Beginner's Mind and The Tao of Pooh as good reads.

Falconers in the US are only ever custodians of a hawk since private ownership is not allowed.

Confirms yes, there is a Lamborghini Huracan LP610 sitting right there.

Declines to detail the identity solution ahead of time, leaving it for the team to unveil at the virtual summit.

Picks pizza over tacos, joking about his Italian heritage.

Shrugs off who the real Satoshi is, saying it does not really matter.

Commits to keeping Philip Wadler on payroll for ten years after he dies just to prove a point, praising his deep academic work on the smart contract computational model.

Is open to putting illustrated art on Cardano for a children's charity.

Admires Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome buildings, noting a few exist in Colorado, then jokes that this must be a body double while the real Charles is out fishing.

Jokes that replacing the worthless Argentine peso with ADA is easy, just stop taking the peso one person at a time.

Calls poutine disgusting and Canada the uncanny valley of America.

He would love a secure version of Neuralink, marveling at the idea of controlling a computer with your mind.

An IOHK internship program is something HR has discussed but has not launched yet given tight deadlines elsewhere.

IOHK is hiring a quantitative analyst partly to get more rigorous internal answers on questions like whether this event triggers the next bull run.

Offers to keep retweeting stake pool introduction videos and tells anyone missed to flag it through Rick.

Durian fruit is terrible but he loves passion fruit and especially star fruit.

He plans to resurrect the Symphony of Blockchain project at some point.

Muses on whether consciousness is a receiver tuning into something larger or just an emergent side effect of biology, name checking Sam Harris and Dan Dennett's takes on the debate.

Clarifies Jormungandr, the ITN test network implementation, has been fully replaced for mainnet and is a totally different thing.

Gets asked about taking lion's mane as a suppository and says he just takes it as tablets.

Picks the milkshake drainage speech as his favorite There Will Be Blood scene.

The team is still trying to figure out how to bring Stephen Wolfram in, possibly through the back door.

Gives a shoutout to Ruth Chris steakhouse in Tokyo, recalling a fun celebration there for Cardano's one year anniversary.

Admits he has no control over going bald and will not take hair loss drugs, saying he will just shave it if it happens.

Reports steady weekly progress on cryptography library work, including a native JavaScript port for Cardano address handling, now staffed by developers who joined IOHK full time.

Planned discussions with Samsung got cancelled because of the coronavirus.

Confirms a public figure's hair restoration came from hair plugs, not anything more exotic.

Jokes that a class action lawsuit against China for pandemic damages would be interesting to watch.

Mocks Justin Sun's reported purchase of Steam using a token built on Dan Larimer's consensus algorithm, questioning where the money even comes from.

Confirms his paintings are originals, names his horses Misty and Jameson, and wishes a viewer named Brad a happy 30th birthday.

Warns that any YouTube ad showing him with a Lambo is a scam, telling people to sell their ADA if they ever see one.

The class action lawsuits against MakerDAO prove that calling something DeFi does not indemnify you from liability, and that anyone with material control over a system will eventually get sued.

Points users having Daedalus issues to the IOHK helpdesk and the in wallet log sending instructions.

Does not think quantum computers will break SHA-256 this decade, calling it not even a meaningful problem to worry about yet.

Offers condolences to a viewer whose father died of COVID and says no, the virus will not destroy the system completely.

Confirms he knows Wim Hof the Iceman and plans to train with him once travel restrictions lift.

The negative oil prices came from futures contracts forcing physical delivery with nowhere to store it, a black swan storage crunch rather than oil itself losing value.

Recalls 2008 predictions of 200 dollar oil and peak oil panic that never materialized, noting oil can even be synthesized from air given cheap enough energy like nuclear.

Predicts battery electric cars will beat hydrogen for transportation long term since hydrogen just reuses the same fossil fuel distribution chain, while battery physics and falling charging costs favor EVs.

Admits he still loves the sound and feel of his 600 horsepower V10 combustion sports car even as he anticipates Tesla's new Roadster hitting 0 to 60 in 1.8 seconds.

Plans to write a closing book once he retires from the cryptocurrency industry.

Promises to tweet out book recommendations on applying the scientific method to everyday life.

Argues oil is not really finite since it can be synthesized from air via carbon capture or from garbage via thermal depolymerization, with Canada's Candu reactors used for similar in situ extraction.

Calls thorium reactors quite good, naming the traveling wave reactor as his favorite design for burning uranium 238, though breeder reactors remain hampered by proliferation bans.

His planned March trip to the Netherlands to train with Wim Hof got cancelled due to the European travel ban.

Admits he does not understand zero point energy well enough to comment.

Recommends number theory as the right starting point for understanding cryptography.

Teases a super secret IOHK project that is just as big as Cardano itself, declining to say anything more.

Hell will freeze over before Bitcoin moves to proof of stake, calling major protocol innovation simply not who they are.