AMA 07/07/2018

Kick off an interactive livestream, taking audience questions instead of a scripted update video.

Recounts the informal two-hour Q&A session with Google engineers in London and the released transcript.

Denies any Google partnership, expect Google to go its own way like Apple and Microsoft while Daedalus reuses Google open source tech such as Electron.

The three way split between IOHK, the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo, comparing Emurgo to Ethereum's ConsenSys and describing the Foundation's auditing and trademark role.

Zero-knowledge proofs and zk-SNARKs from first principles, covering verified computation, Pinocchio and privacy use cases like Zcash.

Using zero-knowledge proofs to validate sidechain transactions without holding a copy of the whole source chain.

Details IOHK's zero-knowledge research streams including the million dollar Edinburgh lab led by Markulf Kohlweiss.

Justify continuing to fund Ethereum Classic development to prove that a promised ledger cannot be retroactively rewritten.

Building the Mantis client from scratch in Scala with the Grothendieck team as the leanest functional Ethereum client.

Ethereum Classic's governance and funding gaps versus Bitcoin style leaderless development, and preview the September summit.

Highlights the weekly public Grothendieck team meetings on YouTube as a transparency model.

Corrects the misconception that Cardano smart contracts can only be written in Haskell.

Lays out the accounting ledger computation model built with Marlowe and Plutus to out scale Bitcoin's transaction types.

The Ethereum style stateful computation model and its current scaling limits pushing projects off chain.

Details the Runtime Verification partnership, the K-EVM formal semantics work and the new IELE (yellow) virtual machine.

Semantic space compilation as a universal compilation target letting any language target Cardano smart contracts.

Multi-party computation as an off chain alternative for games like poker and decentralized exchanges.

Names the MPC toolkit effort Lebowski and describes the Kaleidoscope and Royale poker protocols that preserve card privacy.

Summarizes the roadmap tension between shipping fast and shipping revolutionary smart contract capability.

Previews linking the Shelley ledger to the IELE smart contract layer with Plutus and Marlowe support.

Predicts Bitcoin will decouple from altcoins over time as the market matures, similar to tech sector clustering.

Recounts advising Lisk early on, resigning over slow execution, and wishing Max Kordek well.

Argues the crypto space has more in common than conflict, citing friendly relations with Charlie Lee and other project leads.

Recommending Mantis to Justin Sun for Tron over the insecure Ethereum-Java codebase.

Cites Waves forking Scorex as a healthy example of open source reuse in the space.

Recalls entering Bitcoin in 2011 and the cypherpunk versus libertarian gold-bug origins of the community.

Realizing Bitcoin needed richer transaction types, leading to the founding of Ethereum.

Criticizes Bitcoin maximalism for driving away talent and blocking innovations like Simplicity, MAST and Lightning.

Cites a Cornell study showing fewer than 20 nodes control most Bitcoin hash power to rebut maximalist decentralization claims.

Warns that Bitcoin's slow governance and history of contentious hard forks will erode its market dominance.

Lists IOHK contributions back to Bitcoin like the Dandelion paper and lessons from Blockstream's Simplicity language.

There is no minimum stake to register a stake pool and correct the delegated proof of stake misnomer for Ouroboros.

Describes why delegation matters for cold storage holders who cannot stay online to run their elected slot.

The game theoretic model for sizing the ideal number of stake pools between too few and too many.

Outlines the bootstrap plan: pool registration transactions, a Docker style default pool image, and iterative rollout.

Staking stays possible even at 0.1 percent of the network, letting anyone participate or delegate.

Predicts stake pools will compete on fees and services like Oracles and payment channels, lowering costs over time.

The chain quality metrics used to tune Ouroboros parameters and detect an unhealthy network.

Previews Ouroboros Hydra as the next generation sharding research to scale transaction throughput via amplification.

Credits Byzantine fault tolerance researcher Matthias Fitzi for leading the Hydra scaling research.

Details repeated complaints to Twitter about missing verification while impersonator bots run ether giveaway scams.

Warns about Telegram impersonators soliciting ADA for fake beta tests and describe how to verify his real identity via PGP.

Recalls abandoning Cardano's Slack communities after impersonator bots ran wallet scams there too.

Clarifies the Cardano debit card is a Cardano Foundation initiative delayed by Visa and Mastercard prepaid card restrictions.

Introduces Z/Yen and Michael Mainelli's research reports on geo-stamping, quantum computing and other topical policy questions.

The maturing ICO market and IOHK's edge from the K-EVM giving Ethereum tooling for free on Cardano.

The coming split between security tokens and utility tokens under CFTC and SEC style regulation.

Argues Cardano's multi-asset accounting layer suits both security token issuance and post-decentralization utility tokens.

Condemns vendor lock-in, comparing infrastructure gatekeeping to 1990s Internet Explorer and ActiveX, and pitches blockchain agnostic Daedalus.

Jokes about wanting to spar with Roger Ver over Dan Larimer, praising Ver's salesmanship despite disagreeing with Bitcoin Cash.

Commits to a fully operational Treasury and Voltaire governance by 2020 or 2021, with ADA holders voting on future IOHK funding.

Stresses the need for multiple independent development teams to avoid key man risk in Cardano's protocol governance.

Recaps conversations with Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSA's post-Coincheck exchange regulations.

Argues ADA should fare well under Japanese listing rules given Cardano's transparency, audits and Tokyo Tech research lab.

Rebuts Jackson Palmer's fluff critique of the Cardano whitepapers by detailing the peer reviewed Ouroboros research process.

Points to the rigorous UTXO wallet formal specification as proof the research translates into real engineering.

Reflects that rebuilding the world financial system takes a scalable, welcoming, scientific process, not one paper or codebase.

Emphasize Cardano is a collective multi-company effort including PNSol, Well-Typed, Runtime Verification and the Foundation.

Recounts the Addis Ababa trip, the coffee industry's political intrigue, and meetings with Ethiopian ministries and the World Bank.

Announces an all women Haskell training class in Ethiopia leading to IOHK jobs and a coffee supply chain pilot.

Introduces John O'Connor as director of African operations based between Addis Ababa and London.

Compares Rwanda's fast-moving Kagame government to Ethiopia and Nigeria's larger growth markets after the Transform Africa summit.

State Cardano's African push is secondary to core protocol delivery but sees offline trusted hardware payments as the long term opportunity.

References IOHK's published mesh networking paper by Bernardo David for incentivized off-grid connectivity in Africa.

Teases an August announcement improving the light client, mobile and ATM capable Rust codebase after early vendor mistakes.

A third party operator plans 50 Cardano ATMs in Japan but IOHK does not control their deployment or timing.

Proposes an open source 200 to 500 dollar ATM design researched at the Edinburgh trusted hardware lab with Huawei co-funding.

Warns that off-grid ATM hardware faces theft risk in Africa, requiring careful deployment site selection.

Driving a Cadillac XTS instead of a Lamborghini and rank supercar prices against upkeep costs.

Praises the 2019 Cadillac CT6 twin turbo V8 and recent Corvettes as underrated American performance cars.

Highlights Emurgo's Asia partnerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia for remittance and agritech use cases.

Jokes about liking the Porsche 918 when asked about cars.

Declines to fully unpack the Craig Wright question, teasing it as a topic for another time.

Details the Sirin Labs Finney phone partnership adding native ADA support via its slide-out trusted hardware module.

Recalls the Israel trip for Eurocrypt and meetings with the Sirin, Saga, Orbs and Endor teams.

Announces time for one final question of the stream.

Criticizes Tezos for structuring its foundation like an engineering diagram, sidelining people and governance in favor of raising huge capital.

Argues Tezos, EOS and similar projects raised far more money than needed, unlike Bitcoin's dreamed-not-funded origin.

Credits his team's expertise over his own and criticizes founders like Arthur Breitman, Dan Larimer and Craig Wright for not listening to advice.

Uses Steve Jobs' humbled return to Apple and the Microsoft deal as a model for the humility crypto founders need.

Condemns ICO cash-grab ethics as no better than the bankers behind the 2008 financial crash.

Praises Vitalik Buterin's humility and leadership despite disagreeing over the DAO fork.

Warns the crypto industry has a narrow window to prove it improves the world instead of just building better surveillance tools for the powerful.

Closes the two-hour stream thanking viewers and signing off.