AMA 10/21/2019

Open the AMA broadcasting from Colorado and recap launching the New Balance sneaker authentication app on Cardano, built to fight counterfeiting.

Update on Jormungandr testnet stress testing, pushing toward thousands of nodes ahead of the incentivized testnet.

Daedalus next combines the Haskell wallet backend with Jormungandr, and highlight fast QA growth in the testnet community.

Details the Cardano 1.7 Daedalus release with a message center, followed by the OBFT hard fork in November and a full node rewrite through December.

Map out a Haskell Shelley testnet for January and weigh one snapshot versus a two part dry run snapshot for the ada airdrop.

Early exchange talks and wallet restoration options for hardware wallets, Daedalus, and Yoroi ahead of Shelley.

Thanks the community for over 200 AMA questions plus stake pool task force and forum feedback.

Plans a stake pool dashboard GUI and a block explorer for the incentivized testnet.

Banters with a viewer about missing him at a Los Angeles party.

Praises Zcash's Halo recursive proof breakthrough and describes IOHK's parallel SNARK work on Sonic and Marlin.

Gives an Ethiopia update: a signed pilot deal, an ongoing feasibility study, and possible World Bank funding to finish by mid 2020.

Points a viewer to newly hired commercial directors Michael McDonald and Jerry for pitching killer app ideas.

Clarifies New Balance's app uses colored coins on real chain so shoppers pay a network fee without buying ADA directly.

Outlines plans to attract Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors through custodial infrastructure, market making, and a possible ADA fund with partners like Waves.

Shouts out fan art from a community member reusing work IOHK published back in 2016.

Confirms he is buying a Ugandan soccer team, the Ginger Hippos, delayed by an Ebola outbreak, and joke about meeting Uganda's king.

Pitches tokenizing African soccer players and building a crypto soccer league as a mainstream on ramp into cryptocurrency.

Yes, Cardano could replace Bitcoin as the number one cryptocurrency.

The alpha to beta to mainnet testing philosophy and tease a plug and play hardware stake pool device.

Names Goguen smart contracts as the next milestone after Shelley, crediting the product manager and lead architect Manuel Chakravarty.

Compares a bad eye infection that cost him some eyesight to a gout flare up as his worst health scares.

The stake pool hardware plan: open source boards, custom cases, and a preconfigured Linux distribution sold wholesale and retail.

Missing a Korea trip and conference after getting sick, promising to return with merchandise.

Defends keeping the AMA channel uncensored and simply ignoring trolls instead of moderating them.

The wallet backend is designed to eventually support Bitcoin and Ethereum in Daedalus, though Bitcoin resists modernizing.

Runs through recent research output: proof of partial Bitcoin quantum resistance, structural papers, and private smart contracts work like Kachina.

Details the planned Antarctica expedition: Wim Hof cold training, paramotor lessons, and climbing Mount Sidley with Jeremy and Brian McKenna.

Wanting to visit Brazil and Argentina, home to several IOHK researchers and developers.

Confirms a Coinbase listing is in progress.

Recalls living in Jakarta and rant about Silicon Valley's high cost of living.

Explains why Atala targets permissioned use cases while Cardano stays permissionless, with Atala able to bridge into the Cardano network.

The Cardano debit card is a Cardano Foundation project inherited from an earlier Michael Parsons announcement.

He knows Andreas Antonopoulos well and has appeared on his podcast.

Gives a self taught coding path: Python through Coursera's Code for Everybody, then Hutton's Haskell book and the Plutus course on Udemy.

Denies rumors of a Singapore penthouse or a mistress.

Confirms he does 16:8 intermittent fasting, admitting he has slipped lately.

Outlines a Mongolia adoption pilot following a training class, trailing behind the Georgia and Ethiopia efforts.

A Joe Rogan podcast appearance is planned for 2020 once more infrastructure is ready.

Jokes that Bitcoin maximalist Adam Back will never join Cardano.

Walks through the post Voltaire funding process: IOHK will publish a five year closing report, then submit a funding ballot the community can negotiate or reject.

Argues that competing funding proposals and ada holder votes stop any cult of personality from controlling Cardano's future.

Jokes about Canadian elections and Justin Trudeau.

Shares an LA story of sneakerheads using Cardano without realizing it, calling invisible blockchain UX the real win.

Riffs on the US economy and money printing, and America's edge in quantum, AI, and biotech.

Warns that high taxes and socialism would drive capital to Europe, citing Venezuela and Chavez as a cautionary tale.

Jokes that he now understands why Satoshi Nakamoto stayed anonymous.

Jokes that Craig Wright will claim credit for Cardano once it succeeds.

He hopes ADA becomes the first trillion dollar coin, since that would mean real utility and hundreds of millions of users, not speculation.

Briefly jab at continuing to work with Zcash on distributed features.

An upcoming Sweden trip to train wingsuit flying in a wind tunnel with an IOHK engineer.

The quantum computing threat to elliptic curve and Diffie Hellman cryptography, and survey post quantum candidates like lattice and hash based schemes in the NIST competition.

Ouroboros and Cardano's cryptographic primitives will be redesigned to be quantum resistant well before it becomes an actual threat, likely in the 2030s.

Reveals IOHK's new legal name, Input Output Global, though everyone will keep calling it IOHK.

Waves off worries that risky base jumping habits threaten Cardano's leadership.

He no longer pays attention to Ethereum or DEFCON coverage, comparing himself to a lion ignoring the opinion of sheep.

Jokes that he has not solved the Riemann hypothesis, preferring additive number theory and the Collatz conjecture.

Praises the Horizon Labs consulting partnership and its team as a model of small scale crypto collaboration.

Recommends Godel Escher Bach and Rudy Rucker's work, recalling inviting Rucker to a past IOHK conference.

The Plutus book is available on Amazon Kindle.

Jokes about testifying before Congress alongside a squirming Mark Zuckerberg.

Jokes that he has personally lost more money on Cardano than anyone else.

Declines any interest in meeting Donald Trump.

Stake pool count targets for the Shelley testnet, wanting at least 100 stable pools before raising the K parameter.

Explains why the real chain chip sits in the shoebox card rather than the shoe itself, tied to the Jeff card integration.

Names Journey opening for Aerosmith as the best concert he's seen, and recall almost booking Pink Floyd for the IOHK summit.

Heap praise on Silvio Micali's SNARK research and career, calling him a genius and a legend at MIT.

Names Jameson 18 as his favorite Irish whiskey.

He would move to Switzerland if not the US, citing decentralization and privacy.

Muses about tokenizing the pork industry on Cardano.

Rattle through rapid personal questions: standup comedy, kosher whiskey, and still eating red meat.

He's satisfied with testnet performance so far.

Confirms a collaboration with the University of Wyoming, teasing a special announcement.

Restates long time support for cannabis legalization on libertarian body autonomy grounds.

Confirms he has visited Gettysburg.

Laughs off a lookalike joke about being Ava's kids' father.

Having read Moonwalking with Einstein.

Teases an unannounced dApp on Cardano focused on authentication and anti counterfeiting.

Calls John McAfee a force of nature, comparing him to Alex Jones, while declining to elaborate further.

The AMA format: a short update segment followed by open questions on anything, business or personal.

Get asked whether he believes Bob Lazar's Area 51 claims.

Teases a proposal for Ethereum Classic to be discussed after Shelley and Goguen ship.

Keep the mystery item on his office side table a secret.

Picks Guinness draught over stout.

Shrugs off ADA's market cap ranking, noting Cardano still ranks above thousands of other tokens despite a bear market.

Declines to name a single best competitor, saying he wouldn't mind if the ones he enjoys competing with won.

Names Rick Ross as his favorite rapper.

His ring as over a hundred years old.

Confirms ongoing regular dialogue with regulators.

Reports Hydra scaling work is progressing well.

Mention chatting with Ivan on Tech, apologize for slow replies, and note a scheduling conflict with a Spain keynote that lands on his birthday.

Admits he still has not watched Joker.

Calls LinkedIn a terrible social network.

Liking Lil Wayne and Nine Inch Nails while passing on the new Tool album.

Get hyped for the next season of Rick and Morty.

Jokes about beard envy and a DiCaprio dating comment.

Calls Craig Wright the most distasteful person he's met, recalling walking out on him in Rwanda.

Praises StarkWare and Eli Ben-Sasson's scalability work, wishing them well as a competitor.

Confirms he has met Bush and Clinton but not Obama.

Lists climbing many Colorado fourteeners and owning a soccer team as hobbies.

Recalls he used to play the piano.

Praises Tulsi Gabbard's independence and combat record while blasting Hillary Clinton as everything wrong with politics.

Explains Cardano is named after Gerolamo Cardano, the Italian polymath, and recall his grandfather's dynamite fishing.

Calls Andrew Yang the most interesting Democrat for his universal basic income pitch.

Closes out reminiscing about being a Nuggets and Broncos fan with his dad, plus fly fishing.

Signs off the AMA from sunny Colorado.