AMA 02/09/2021

Open the AMA broadcasting live from Colorado and reminisce about living in Osaka, Japan.

Shows off a newly bought shakuhachi flute as a show-and-tell item.

Points to Tesla's 1.5 billion dollar bitcoin position as proof crypto adoption is becoming inevitable.

Argues that Fortune 500 companies buying crypto will push governments toward friendlier regulation.

Pushes back on critics who dismiss Cardano as just a whitepaper, citing 95 published research papers.

Frames 2021 as when years of building finally turn into visible results for Cardano.

Teases a piece of good news coming later in February 2021 without giving details.

Open the floor to live audience questions.

Shares a Norwegian family history and praises Norway's sovereign wealth fund for how well it invests.

Cardano already has a strong presence in Japan and vow to get ADA listed there.

Reacts to a call for a Cardano powered Greek currency by pointing to IOG's Athens office and lab.

Recaps ties to Ethiopia, including an IOG office in Addis Ababa and a planned joint office with SingularityNET.

He's not aware of Andreas Antonopoulos hosting any safe space and ask the chat for the story.

The story of Ripple's former CTO Stefan Thomas locked out of 200 million dollars on an IronKey drive.

Speculates an Israeli hardware exploitation team could eventually crack the IronKey's encryption.

An experimental exosome treatment in Florida meant to slow biological aging.

Gives a status update on the TelePrism telecom project scaling up in Georgia and Ethiopia.

Predicts the decentralization parameter d hits zero by March 31 at the current pace.

Reflects on being called a scammer, comparing himself to Musk, Jobs, and Gates before praising Norman Borlaug's legacy.

Dismisses Fibonacci retracement chart analysis as only good for herding traders like rabbits.

Confirms he's visited the Philippines and has family in Cebu and Mindanao.

Hint that tonight's AMA might include a surprise guest at the end.

Announces plans for a security led scam squad and industry wide messaging against crypto scams.

Calls out YouTube and social platforms as complicit in giveaway scams and shares how heartbreaking victim emails are.

Gives a status update on the Mary testnet, on schedule for a February hard fork combinator event.

He hasn't received a Covid vaccine yet due to age eligibility but would lean toward Novavax.

Dodge a joke question about late night cocaine and salmon with a quip about an unbearably funny bear.

Gives a timeline for Daedalus wallet support of multiple native assets, in February or March 2021.

Sets one to many stake delegation for Q2, paired with hybrid wallets, prioritized behind native multi asset.

Admits he should meditate daily but hasn't made it a habit yet.

Gives a first look at the Omega protocol, the culmination of six years of consensus research after Genesis ships.

Timing an AgeUSD style stablecoin launch alongside the Plutus testnet and native assets.

He doesn't yet know when he'll next attend an in person town hall event.

Questions how Google lets a fake Daedalus wallet stay in the Play Store without verification.

Calls CZ a friend and speak positively of Binance.

Confirms work on the Basho development phase is already underway in parallel.

The real test of how fast Ethereum smart contracts can move to Cardano comes with Plutus in March and April.

Praises Project Catalyst's growth hacking effect as Cardano's secret sauce.

Firmly deny that ADA is a fork of Ethereum, joking that it's kept in a separate side chain box.

Names Jean Leon Gerome and Gustav Klimt as favorite painters.

He'll comment on Hashgraph once its patents expire or are opened up.

Profess love for the Legend of Zelda series and its characters.

An elaborate fantasy Antarctica expedition once Covid travel restrictions lift.

There's no clinical research linking lion's mane mushroom to multiple sclerosis, though it may help dementia.

Praises Ben Goertzel as a genius and highlights SingularityNET's move into project phase two.

Recommends learning Haskell for the functional programming discipline it teaches, and plans for free tutorials on the Haskell Book.

Lists piano and the shakuhachi flute as instruments he plays, joking about becoming a komuso monk.

Shares a three part method for avoiding burnout: a daily de-stress ritual, leaving work problems at the door, and slowing down.

Praises The Mandalorian for its space western tone and Star Wars world building.

Names Arcanum as his favorite video game of all time.

Recaps a Lex Fridman podcast conversation about Eugenia Kuyda's AI replica chatbot company.

Pitches an idea for tokenizing unique AI trained chatbot personalities as NFTs.

He'd consider going on the Joe Rogan podcast after Gogen ships.

He's a happy user of the Brave browser and BAT.

Fields a question from a Slovak mathematician asking how to work for IOG.

Reports winning the Wikipedia edit dispute, with Cardano now having a proper page.

Jokes that Twitter will get verified when he buys Twitter.

Argues true diversity comes from embracing differences of opinion and values, not from quotas.

Names Euler's identity as his favorite mathematical equation.

Owning a pet giraffe in South Africa named Chips.

Reacts to Jeff Bezos stepping down as Amazon CEO, joking about a supervillain future.

Himself as a wildlife photography hunter who only captures animals on camera.

Recalls visiting Tromso, Norway to see the northern lights above the Arctic Circle.

Confirms he's visited Grand Junction, Colorado and laughs off a Chandler from Friends comparison.

Denies having bodyguards, joking about relying on ninja skills instead.

Points to the isomorphic state channels paper as a good read on decentralizing social media.

Picks Donatello as his favorite Ninja Turtle after years of waiting for the question.

Credits Tom Brady's longevity to disciplined recovery science rather than just talent.

Gives a quick update that Duncan is doing well working on the network stack.

Names Richard Feynman as his favorite physicist and recommends Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.

Side with Messi over Ronaldo without hesitation.

Lean toward a lab leak origin for Covid rather than a purely natural zoonotic spillover.

Plans a new 2025 whiteboard explainer video for Cardano, promising 8K and hagoromo chalk.

Argues belief is not a design failure but what motivates people to do extraordinary things.

Declares Godzilla the winner over King Kong and recall watching every Godzilla film on VHS.

Lists other passions he'd pursue besides Cardano: math research, video games, anti-aging, and bioluminescent plants.

Points aspiring contributors to Project Catalyst and IdeaScale to propose and fund their own work.

Names the Goldbach conjecture as his favorite unsolved math problem before heading to the whiteboard.

Walks through the Collatz conjecture on the whiteboard, explaining hailstone sequences and powers of two.

The Goldbach conjecture, that every even number above two is the sum of two primes.

Python and Scala are the languages he knows best, while calling himself a reader rather than a professional programmer.

Reflects on how engineering success lives in unglamorous implementation details that academics tend to overlook.

Clarifies that any personal data he holds legally belongs to IOG, not to him.

His farrier and two horses, Misty and Jameson.

Praises Papua New Guinea's beauty and its birds.

Gives an even handed take on Polkadot, praising Gavin Wood's team as good engineers with a more disciplined process than Ethereum.

A mycologist friend helping set up lion's mane growing facilities across the US.

Teases that the AMA surprise is something viewers must look within themselves to find.

Greets a professor from the University of Norway and decline to sing on camera.

Expresses continued love for Italy and clarifies it's still a home office, not a new one.

Names 2001: A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket as favorite Kubrick films, sharing a story about the drill instructor actor.

Targets the Alonzo hard fork for Q2 2021, pending Plutus testnet progress, and plans to stress test it with a Uniswap port.

Shares that he was born in Maui and lived in Makawao.

Liquidity fragmentation in Japan makes building a Cardano based DEX increasingly appealing.

Reminisces about attending Metropolitan State College of Denver, now MSU Denver, in its old run-down science building.

Names Hibiki as his favorite whiskey.

He wasn't happy with his TED talk from six years ago and wants a do-over, plus plans to revisit Bermuda for its ten year anniversary.

Confirms many other cryptocurrencies are interested in working with Cardano.

Gives his review of Mad Max: Fury Road after watching it in IMAX.

Praises Tron: Legacy and Jeff Bridges' performance.

Clarifies he trained in taekwondo and judo rather than karate.

Empathy and honesty are the traits he admires most, more than raw talent or performance.

Recommends How to Prove It, How to Solve It, and The Art and Craft of Problem Solving for a gifted 11 year old's math education.

Picks Thanos as the best fictional villain in the Marvel universe.

Recommends the GKL paper, the extended UTXO paper, and the Ouroboros classic paper as top IOG research reads.

Rank Rick and Morty above Family Guy, pointing to the season four acid vat episode.

Synesthesia, where numbers appear as colors, and its link to exceptional memory.

Denies being a Freemason, joking about their bake sales.

Suggests audiobooks or podcasts for people who don't enjoy reading books.

Names Daniel Dennett as a favorite philosopher, referencing intuition pumps and consciousness.

Admits he has no idea what JD Power actually is or why car ads cite it.

Jokes that the secret to talking to women is simply listening to them.

Confirms plans to reboot the Elder Scrolls style game Legends of Valor.

Rejects the Trump impeachment as political theater and calls instead for a special prosecutor to investigate him as a private citizen.

Argues the country needs a full constitutional convention rather than another rigged two party election cycle.

Jokes that flying cobras are what actually keep him up at night.

Cheer for the Colorado Avalanche in hockey.

Names Maryam Mirzakhani as his favorite Fields Medal winner and reflects on her death from breast cancer.

Calls Arthur Hayes a talented, charismatic guy who flew too close to the sun.

Reacts to the decentralized Project Bluesky Twitter alternative with a bird joke.

Jorge Luis Borges and the Library of Babel short story.

Names Laplace as his favorite French scientist, with Pasteur as a runner up.

Closes the AMA with a parable about a CSU student painting road stripes to explain the Boulder versus Colorado State rivalry.