AMA 04/19/2020

Focus on the Byron reboot release, noting flight candidate sync times dropping from eight hours to ten minutes thanks to rapid bug fixing.

Responds to critics claiming Shelley will never ship after his whiteboard roadmap video.

Lays out the concrete Shelley Haskell testnet timeline: a major node release on the 23rd, then CLI and wallet backend integration.

Compares Cardano's graceful decentralized upgrade path favorably to Ethereum's planned Eth2 dual token transition.

Jokes about his fast growing beard and messy office after viewer teasing.

Stake pool operators stay profitable long after ADA's fixed supply is minted, citing transaction fees, multi asset toll revenue and Hydra channel services.

The Treasury voting system can adjust monetary policy parameters like inflation if the community agrees.

Explains why he hired Romain Pellerin as CTO after running both CEO and CTO roles solo, praising his handling of the growing 200 plus person team.

Details the Shelley wallet migration: new bech32 addresses, a full wallet rotation, and a balance check testnet giving users time to migrate.

Watching legacy to Shelley migration transactions on chain gives useful adoption analytics, and urges users to back up their seed phrases.

Dismisses a critical paper calling Cardano's development delayed, pointing to four releases in seventeen days as proof of accelerating velocity.

Warns delay critics that the community will remember and hold them accountable once Shelley ships.

Answers how Cardano will handle transaction fee adjustments as ADA's price changes, describing a future dynamic fee formula set through Voltaire.

Gives an update on the Ledger hardware wallet integration, covering cold staking support, multi sig, and a three to six week Daedalus rollout.

Cardano's PRISM identity system could be a candidate backend for the ID2020 initiative.

Outlines the Plutus API roadmap for Goguen and an internal debate over shipping multi asset as a Shelley 1.5 update to test extended UTXO early.

Moving Plutus from an academic project to a full engineering effort with its own release cadence and a dedicated project manager.

Denies that Ethereum 2 is adopting any of Cardano's research, saying the Ethereum team has never reached out despite it being in their own interest.

Defends five years and sixty research papers as intrinsically valuable even before full implementation, comparing it to holding a proven cure on paper.

Predicts Ethereum will struggle with bureaucracy and fragmented governance while Cardano's on chain voting lets it move faster.

Pushes back on a stake pool operator's bug complaint, pointing to the help desk and Telegram channels as the proper support process for the incentivized testnet.

Debunks crypto media reports of a Cardano Google partnership, explaining it was just an invited presentation, and criticizes sensationalist crypto journalism.

Critics who think Cardano is just a wallet to actually study the ecosystem before dismissing the project.

Argues Cardano is roughly two years ahead of Algorand with a bigger network effect, clearer commercialization path and broader partnerships.

Brushes off a Tezos comparison, saying Cardano has yet to begin to fight.

Muses about someday teaching an updated cryptocurrency course and making more whiteboard videos once the 2020 roadmap is locked in.

Confirms Hydra is a layer two solution that runs in parallel with consensus without requiring a hard fork, fixing problems he sees in the Lightning Network.

Confirms BeefChain, a Wyoming cattle tracking venture, is set to deploy on Cardano as part of the Goguen launch portfolio.

Rejects switching Cardano to a DAG structure like IOTA or Avalanche, saying it would offer no real advantage over the current blockchain design.

Recounts the painful decision to scrap an early Shelley codebase, costing eighteen months, and compares it to how Ethereum's Casper and Boeing's 787 also slipped schedules.

Argues that doing development transparently in public, warts and all, is still not enough to satisfy some critics.

Dismisses an obscure YouTube critic, arguing the best response to internet trolls is simply to keep shipping and let the work speak.

Denies a fabricated quote claiming Mike Tyson said Cardano sucks.

The on the ground Africa team led by John O'Connor across Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria, contrasting it with rivals who just talk.

Lays out the litmus test for who is serious about Africa: real agricultural technology work on supply chains, fertilizer tracking and farm equipment financing.

Outlines plans for sustainable mine financing in Africa covering environmental cleanup and worker safety, stressing three to seven year timelines and political risk.

Accuse rival projects like Apollo, Iconic and Tron of making Africa claims without real follow through, saying no one owns the continent.

Teases upcoming Voltaire governance announcements from the more than ten person team, now including former incentivized testnet staff.

Confirms no IOHK layoffs or furloughs in the UK due to coronavirus.

Confirms plans to get the Haskell node running on low power devices like a Raspberry Pi or Rock Pi for the friends and family testnet.

The Falcon.io media partnership refreshing Cardano.org, building a single source of truth on Wikipedia and enterprise brand differentiation.

Points to Simon Thompson joining as DSL lead to accelerate Marlowe and build additional domain specific languages beyond finance.

Reconfirm 2020 remains the target for Shelley mainnet.

Confirms the original Rust incentivized testnet nodes will be shut down once the balance check testnet launches.

Explains why asset backed stablecoins like Tether carry custodian risk, citing the historical failure of over 200 nineteenth century private bank currencies.

Recalls bitUSD, his own early algorithmic stablecoin attempt with Dan Larimer on Bitshares, which ultimately failed.

Outlines a vision for an ADA backed algorithmic stablecoin that could drive massive demand for ADA, led by a team under Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo.

Makes the case for another five years of IOHK stewardship, pointing to growth from two people to 230 across ten labs and warning of the cost to disassemble that expertise.

Frames IOHK's continued funding as a democratic Treasury vote, arguing a real commercial system beats charity or telethon style funding.

Admits unfamiliarity with Eric Weinstein's Geometric Unity theory when a viewer asks about it.

Shows off a collection of ceremonial masks from Nepal, Africa and Venice Carnival.

A falling US dollar drags down the whole world since other currencies can't fully decouple from it.

Jokes about owning Lamborghinis and their absurdly expensive oil changes.

Praises Stephen Wolfram's pursuit of a computational theory of everything as his career defining Twilight project, drawing a TS Eliot parallel.

Names Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises as favorite Austrian economists while noting he isn't a strict Austrian economics adherent.

Gives a detailed COVID 19 medical update, arguing real case fatality rates are far lower than reported once antibody testing like the Netherlands' is factored in.

Highlights over 500 clinical trials underway for COVID treatments including Remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine, with therapeutics expected within weeks.

Predicts the second COVID wave will be much milder than the first, unlike the 1918 Spanish flu, citing early herd immunity.

Warns that shutting down the economy has devastated the poor and could trigger social unrest, defaults and political upheaval before a vaccine even arrives.

Argues crypto is the primary beneficiary as people lose faith in governments and central banks, fleeing to alternatives that can't be confiscated.

Predicts a COVID vaccine could arrive as early as Q4 2020 for at risk groups since manufacturing is happening in parallel with trials.

Rapid innovation in low cost testing and reusable PPE as a COVID silver lining that will also help with seasonal flu.

Wraps up his coronavirus update, warning social unrest will do more damage than the disease itself and could reshape the world order.

He has no regrets about 2018, explaining that paying for Ethereum's formal semantics research was money well spent even though it wasn't fully realized.

Reflects that surviving 2018's setbacks made IOHK a stronger, more focused company with better technology than if everything had gone right the first time.

Vents frustration that ADA's price doesn't reflect Cardano's technical progress, dismissing coin market cap rank as a vanity metric.

Grounded work like Africa's fertilizer vouchers and identity systems, not price speculation, is what keeps him motivated in crypto.

Confirms a free virtual Shelley launch event with presentations from IOHK product managers, Emurgo and the Cardano Foundation.

Argues cryptocurrency is likely the best way to implement a universal basic income, but only if funded by a sovereign wealth fund rather than inflation.

Reveals the team searched among 25 candidates to find a non Zoom platform for the virtual Shelley launch event.

Reassures users they can never lose ADA in the Shelley upgrade, though funds may stay locked until they complete the wallet rotation.

Criticizes the WHO's apparent deference to China early in the pandemic, saying political missteps cost lives and jobs worldwide.

Dismisses claims that databases have surpassed blockchain, noting he's the only person to have worked with both Dan Larimer and Vitalik Buterin.

Shares this season's ranch planting, growing jalapenos, peppers and Devil's Tongue chilis under grow lights.

Confirms he still does a quarterly fast.

Weighs in briefly on telomerase and cancer cell immortality after a viewer cites a Weinstein brothers podcast on lab mice.

Teases a secret second product in development that could be as large in impact as Cardano itself.

He deliberately keeps his personal life private so people have less to speculate accurately about.

Having children is important for humanity's survival, calling it a magical thing with the right kids.

Praises Netflix's Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance as a worthy successor to Jim Henson's original passion project.

Lists Max Tegmark and Nassim Taleb among authors he's read, citing Life 3.0, Antifragile and The Black Swan.

Names Glenmorangie Signet and Macallan as favorite scotches, noting he's been alcohol free since December.

Reveals his unborn son's nickname will be Wolf, ahead of the baby's arrival the following week.

Recounts having family in Mindanao, Philippines, and disliking Manila's overcrowding on his visits.

Lays out a theory that Jeffrey Epstein was a compromised intelligence asset running a blackmail operation, not a suicide.

Jokes about his conflicted love for Canada, then name his two horses Misty and Jameson.

Calls Peter Schiff an idiot for predicting a dollar collapse, pointing to his poor track record on gold investments since 2008.

Argues the dollar won't collapse near term thanks to US military and trade dominance, though long term debt remains a real concern.

Confirms exchanges will be able to offer staking through a partnership with Bison Trails once Shelley launches.

Dismisses the euro as an alternative to the dollar, speculating Italy or France could eventually leave the EU.

Confirms the US holds the world's largest gold reserves at several hundred tons.

Identify the artwork behind him as a Waterhouse painting and a Klimt reproduction, clarifying they're paintings not posters.

Advises against moving to Denver specifically, recalling his own less than delightful time living near the Capitol during college.

Reveals a planned Antarctica trip, the last continent he hasn't visited, was cancelled due to coronavirus.

Denies believing in the Illuminati.

Compares Daedalus Flight to Google Chrome Canary, an advanced build channel for rapidly shipping new wallet features to mainnet users.

He's never interacted with Richard Heart, dismissing him as just another crypto personality.

Dismisses a claim that Bitcoin is killing proof of stake as nonsense.

Playfully commits to launching Shelley in 2020 specifically because a fan named Zane asked him to.

Recounts a memorable dinner with William Shatner at a crypto conference in Cancun, including a Star Trek Klingon joke.

Lays out his theory that COVID 19 accidentally leaked from a Wuhan lab that had been studying coronaviruses since the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Whistleblower complaints about safety protocol violations at the Wuhan lab preceded the outbreak.

Compares lax Wuhan lab safety to how carefully the US and Russia guard remaining smallpox samples.

Calls the 2020 lockdown protests reasonable, criticizing media coverage and citing Sweden's low death toll despite staying open.

Criticizes mortgage forbearance terms that dump three months of payments due at once, calling it a scam that will spark backlash.

Recalls visiting both islands of New Zealand and playing with a rare kakapo parrot.

Calls out a viewer for creepily sharing personal details about him, and denies being a closet Trump supporter.

Blast Bill Gates for backing lockdowns while sitting on a hundred billion dollars, saying the poor and working class bear the real cost.

Tear into Craig Wright and Bitcoin SV, calling the community's blind faith similar to OneCoin and BitConnect cult behavior.

Dismisses BSV's unlimited block size scaling claims as violating basic computer science and physics.

Argues that patenting blockchain technology to control a founder's vision defeats the entire point of decentralization.

He won't vote for Joe Biden, citing concerns about his mental fitness.

Recalls calling out BitConnect and OneCoin as scams from the start on Bloomberg TV, criticizing exchanges for listing them anyway for the trading fees.

Reflects on working for Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign, calling him his only real boss.

Pushes back on claims that former collaborators speak badly of him, saying he's simply blunt about pointing out others' fiduciary failures.

Demo the Breather Fit device he bought to strengthen his lungs and diaphragm against COVID.

Rebuts claims he abandons projects, noting only he and Vitalik have stayed with their original projects this long, unlike Dan Larimer's three departures.

Welcomes Starlink's low latency satellite internet given his own patchy 4G connection out on the ranch.

Outrage focused YouTubers profit from manufacturing controversy, calling the model self defeating.

Rejects accusations of running an exit scam, saying his credibility depends entirely on shipping what he promises.

Outlines hydroponic farming as a retirement plan, crediting a mentor named Rush who wrote the book on hydroponic food production.

Details a 50 acre farm to fork hydroponics and aquaponics business plan supplying Boulder, aiming for 15 percent returns.

Clarifies he's not contractually obligated to promote ADA, and does the AMAs purely because he loves the community.

He avoids marijuana, preferring substances that enhance rather than dull him.

Recommends Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Jonathan Katz as the definitive cryptography textbook.

Confirms Chainlink could migrate its ERC20 token to Cardano if it wanted to.

Recommends the AeroGarden as an easy beginner hydroponic system.

Recounts giving away his roughly 293,000 ETH founder allocation, worth about 350 million dollars at Ethereum's all time high, to another early team member in financial trouble.

Gives a detailed explainer on why juice fasting fails, describing how insulin locks fat stores while true water fasting enables ketosis.

Recommends Dr. Jason Fung's fasting protocols, originally developed for diabetes patients, as a reliable resource.

Being the mathematician outlier in a family of doctors spanning three generations.

Weighs in on the paleo versus vegan versus keto debate, saying he personally does much better on a ketogenic diet than as a vegetarian.

Confirms the Atala team has been folded into PRISM to accelerate Cardano's identity solution.

Shares having tried shark fin soup in Korea.

Confirms he's the wealthiest member of his family and endorses the Mediterranean diet.

Jokes about being part of the Cicada 3301 puzzle community, then reflect that giving away his ETH tokens still worked out because it was never about money.

Runs through a rapid fire personal Q&A on masks, lobster and underwear brand preferences.

Praises the movie Interstellar, Hans Zimmer's score and Christopher Nolan, then pay tribute to Rush drummer Neil Peart.

Names Simpsons seasons three through nine as his favorite, highlighting Conan O'Brien's stint as a lead writer.

Shares favorite Mega Man X games from the SNES trilogy.

A celebrity lookalike story before naming Super Mario World and Adventure Island as favorite NES era games.

Declines to comment on a new smart contract chain whitepaper he just received, saying he hasn't read it yet.

Clarifies there's no formal partnership with the Web3 Foundation or Polkadot beyond a friendly relationship.

Clarifies his relationship with Polymath was limited to a fulfilled consulting contract, not an ongoing partnership.

Confirms excitement for the upcoming Bitcoin halving and reiterate that Treasury funded work contracts will be made public for ADA holders to review.

Reveals plans to get Highland cattle for the ranch.

Confirms human readable bech32 addresses and ADA handles are coming, calling them very easy to implement.

Names the Gulfstream G700 as his ideal private jet, while noting business class is usually good enough.

He drives only gas vehicles, praising his Cadillacs and trucks.

Fields a final round of silly rapid fire questions before signing off for the night.