UPD 03/14/2020

Broadcasts from snowy Colorado while waiting to head to a funeral, joke about rising coronavirus cases, then dive into quick Cardano updates.

Corrects inaccurate Reddit reports of Cardano commit activity, since trackers still point at the deprecated cardano-sl repo instead of the new repositories.

Plans a refreshed Cardano Foundation website as a one-stop shop for ADA holders, governance participants, developers, and stake pool operators.

Makes it a high priority to get the Plutus mock chain ready so developers can start writing and testing smart contracts full time.

Hand Aparna ownership of Cardano release dates, with the next monthly product management update expected around the end of March.

Welcomes Dor Garbash as dedicated product manager for Voltaire as it moves from research into implementation, also representing IOHK on the CIP committee.

Names Rob Cohen product manager for Basho and Hydra, with a Hydra blog post and Cardano Effect episodes coming to cover the paper.

Start funding community built commercially critical infrastructure, dubbed CCCI, things like explorers, a multi asset standard, stablecoins, and oracles that Cardano needs to stay competitive.

Asks stake pool operators to record introduction videos about themselves and their pools so he can retweet them ahead of the Shelley launch.

Invites the community to brainstorm on Reddit what else should count as commercially critical infrastructure for Cardano's long term competitiveness.

Reports the incentivized testnet stabilizing after the 0.8.14 release, with ticket volume dropping and ADA staked, pool counts, and chain quality all trending up.

Recaps a recent London meetup with prominent stake pool operators to gather business and technical priorities ahead of the Shelley release.

Credits new IOHK CTO Romain for speeding up decisions, letting him step back from acting as both CEO and CTO.

Confirms the project remains on schedule, with a big product update and hopefully a release at the end of the month, plus upcoming Cardano Foundation announcements on the CIP committee and CCCI.

A big effort to redesign cardano.org into a single source of truth for information currently scattered across the ecosystem.

Work closely with exchange partners on Shelley readiness and staking as a service, noting Ledger has been selected for hardware wallet integration.

Reveals Sonic, a new zero knowledge proof system that upgrades on the scheme Zcash uses, planned for reveal at the now virtual ZK Proof Summit.

Details a final major Ouroboros paper explaining how proof of stake chains can formally recover from a dishonest majority attack, closing out the first five years of Ouroboros research.

Pushes Hydra toward a prototype built specifically for Cardano's extended UTXO model, unique among chains yet still interoperable with Lightning.

Atala Prism DID identity work stays on schedule for a second half of 2020 launch, already proven with real Georgian academic credentials on chain.

Weighs options for the Shelley launch event after the planned Kyoto gathering gets complicated by coronavirus cancellations like SXSW and Mobile World Congress, looking at a free virtual conference instead.

Plans to travel to Kyoto in person for the Shelley launch regardless, calling it a philosophically important sign of respect to the Japanese community that supported Cardano since day one.

Closes by inviting stake pool operators worldwide to share their stories and asking if someone can build a map pinning every pool's location.