2025-09-02
On Alternative Clients and Nodes
- He affirms he has always supported client diversity, evidenced by the formal specifications, and never opposed alternative nodes.
- The original plan was a one to n rollout through Intersect's steering committees, derailed when Pragma formed and the CF refused to join.
- He doubts the alternative nodes can ship Leios in 2026, so IO runs a 24/7 follow the sun effort on the Haskell node and fired firms that resisted.
- The industry is addicted to drama; he draws two red lines: never accuse him of a crime, never repurpose others' money, as with the CF's unelected board.
- Cardano won 2024 as the most decentralized chain, and its partner chains and Midnight can absorb all ecosystem utility.
51 entries
Frames a Labor Day video to correct misinterpretation of his AMA comments on client diversity by people building alternative clients.
Affirms client diversity is crucial and foundational to decentralization, agreeing developers need the option to customize their nodes.
The evidence he always planned for it is the formal specifications, an implementation independent blueprint for Cardano.
Without a spec the Haskell node becomes the spec, so complete blueprints in TLA, Agda, Coq, or Lean are the key to diversity.
Recalls the original plan of a technical and product steering committee at Intersect controlling the source code IO turned over.
The IBM Fabric style 1.x to 2.x approach, building Cardano 2.x in parallel until feature parity, as Lace 2.0 is doing now.
Instead Pragma formed, and its builders like Blink's dingo built nodes that were not contributing to the specifications.
IO paid for node diversity workshops, hired Pragma builders like Sundae and TxPipe, and uses Dolos in its Mithril full node for the Daedalus replacement.
Recalls Ethereum's client diversity via Gavin Wood's C++ and Jeff Wilcke's Go clients, the yellow paper, and the EVM test suite used for Mantis.
He planned Cardano 2.x for 2020 and built a Rust version, Project Yorcander, that ran the incentivized testnet, plus a Scala node for Java.
Shipping Shelley through smart contracts in 24 months plus governance consumed everyone, and now Basho is the last milestone.
Once the paradigm is set with final specs, Hydra, and Leios, client diversity can flourish, but runners ahead must dial home to avoid partitions.
Proposes certified clients, where an auditor verifies a node follows the specification, since there is no official Cardano client.
Treasury and Catalyst funding should pay for baseline features, new features, and certification together, not just a feature set.
IO has asked more than a dozen times to join Pragma to push certification and interoperability, but has been refused.
The Cardano Foundation was meant to be that members organization but chose the Linux Foundation and, after hiring Durk, barred IO from joining.
Intersect was created as a fallback but was slowed when key people went off to create Pragma instead of helping build it.
The CF's deal barred IO and him personally from the open source project, forcing Emurgo and IO to create Intersect.
The CF refused to join Intersect's board over its Cayman connection, denying full steering committee participation.
Pragma members must co author and build the Leios CIP, not just come along for 20 percent of the ride.
Doubts the alternative nodes are resourced to build Leios in 2026, so the remedy is more funding for them or delaying Leios.
IO runs a 24/7 follow the sun model for Leios on the Haskell node, reassigning or terminating anyone who resisted the effort.
Warns fragmented committees push alternative nodes to attack the talented, long serving Haskell developers to gain market share.
Within a few years there will be three to five active clients, and IO invests in the Haskell Foundation and Project Acropolis, a Rust microservice node.
The outcomes he wants are Leios shipping, StarStream and Midgard composability, partner chains for Bitcoin and XRP DeFi, and three to five competitive clients.
Lace will let users choose their backend node, Haskell, Rust, TypeScript, or Go, with Dolos plus Mithril the first full node deployed.
Proposes an enterprise versus retail split: heavy Kubernetes and Kafka microservices for enterprise, light Dolos nodes syncing in under an hour for retail.
The network stack needs an adult conversation as Leios arrives, adding a pub sub architecture for partner chains, DAPs, and SPOs.
The industry has gotten too in love with drama, and his CF disagreements make his job harder even though he has moved on.
The audit report runs on the auditors' time, the disclosure website is built, and any delay gets spun as bad faith hiding.
The last two years were the hardest of his life, yet ADA is up 140 percent over a year, outperforming Bitcoin, and beat Bitcoin 200 percent since inception.
He negotiates hard against mid eight figure integration prices so the real price protects every CNT holder.
Missteps and political decisions hurt not him but the small Cardano projects and ADA holders he meets at every event.
He burned the genesis keys and built Intersect to function without him, rebutting the claim it was about control.
Marcus from the CF spread the false claim that Intersect received 300 million ADA, which the audit report will disprove.
The red line with the CF is their unelected, unaccountable board, and IO fights for the community's money, not Swiss control.
His personal red line is being accused of a crime, unlike Laura Shin's Cryptopians book which never alleged one.
Cites positive partnerships with Snek, Hosky, Anastasia, Michael Yagi's Animoca work, and Adam Dean, whom he works with at Rare Evo despite disagreements.
The Midnight airdrop to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and XRP turned former critics into friends, meeting Brad Garlinghouse at the Salt Conference Fed roundtable.
Cardano's partner chains and Midnight can absorb all ecosystem utility, the blockchain service layer he described building in 2014.
Nobody has won yet, crypto is played in rounds, and Cardano won 2024 as the most decentralized chain, with postquantum, AI, and agentic revolutions ahead.
Lists wins to celebrate: an elected constitutional committee, the first budget and treasury withdrawal, a ratified constitution, and half the Midnight airdrop redeemed by non ADA holders.
Ada Whale left over a factual disagreement about divesting 100 million ADA, then weaponized his DRep, a case of playing the victim.
Contrasts the Ape Society abandoning Cardano for Base with Snek Nation, who rewrote their listing proposal instead of playing the victim.
He gives Elon Musk pro tips on fixing X with veracity bonds and verified tweets, and believes Cardano must build a social network.
The 600 million theft headline angers him because millions will remember it forever, and he must learn not to let it make him angry.
Every great entrepreneur starts with pure narcissism and undergoes a great humbling, his from 100 billion ADA down to 25 cents.
His family has been in healthcare 70 years and he spent 200 million on a clinic he will never profit from, fighting a system that rewards the corrupt.
Recalls the Monroe Institute in communal bunks where nobody knew him, saying he would be happy losing it all since he is here to change things.
Asks what Cardano's collective legacy will be over 40 years, to run the world or be a footnote, and tells critics to judge themselves first.
Closes that Cardano has its fights in public unlike others, with two red lines: never accuse him of a crime, never repurpose others' money.