AMA 05/29/2020

Opens the show broadcasting from Colorado, reflecting on a difficult month of protests, fires, and quarantine before diving into questions.

Confirms the Shelley mainnet launch date of June 30, with July 7 as a backup if the hard fork combinator testing on the 23rd runs into trouble.

Announces the Pioneer incentivized testnet opens June 9 as the last stop before Shelley goes live on mainnet.

Frames the AMA as open to any topic the community wants, from love and life to politics and crypto.

Responds to a jab about Tyson Quick's Twitter behavior by contrasting Colorado with San Francisco's intolerant, monolithic tech culture.

Lays out the fairness test behind Cardano's protocols: equal access to opportunity regardless of geography or birth.

His dislike of socialism and communism, arguing centralized redistribution schemes inevitably corrupt into political favoritism.

Uses gun rights as an example of trusting neighbors, contrasting Switzerland's armed but low violence society with growing social distrust.

Warns that cancel culture and an inability to tolerate disagreement threaten the self sovereignty crypto is meant to deliver.

The Cardano Improvement Proposal process works and why it's rolling out slowly to bring the community along.

The challenge of linking CIPs to formal specifications in a way that stays neutral as Rust and other client implementations emerge.

Argues Ernst and Young's Nightfall is inferior to Cardano's Sonic proof system and the Kachina paper on private smart contracts.

Pushes back on the claim that nations avoid third party currencies, citing Greece's euro, Kenya's M Pesa, and dollar use in Argentina.

Brushes off a Cointelegraph jab calling Cardano vaporware ahead of its own mainnet release.

Updates on Ledger hardware wallet support, with a Daedalus Flight demo coming after a delay and Yoroi mobile already shipping it.

He doesn't view Algorand as a competitor, respects Silvio Micali's science but dislikes patenting blockchain research.

Confirms cold staking support is required for Ledger integration and should ship with the Shelley firmware update.

Greets a viewer from Colorado Springs and swaps notes on local spots like Castle Rock.

Daedalus mobile is out of scope for 2020 but points to Yoroi for mobile now, with a mobile plan proposed for the IOHK contract renewal.

Confirms ITN stake carries over seamlessly after the hard fork via address rotation, and explains why preserving chain history took so long to engineer.

Explains why big corporate partnerships like Google or Samsung often end with the company internalizing the work instead of paying for it.

Argues small and medium enterprises and governments are better growth partners than large corporations that already have in house resources.

The coming Daedalus paper wallet rotation that lets holders keep keys offline while still delegating stake from the interface.

Updates on the Africa strategy, including a bid with the African Trade Association and the years it takes to earn trust in the region.

African deals only work when incentives align so nobody locally benefits from killing the deal, requiring public private consortiums.

Frames Africa as his intended legacy, predicting it could host the fastest growing economies by 2040 and 2050 if the region gets this right.

Reflects on how much happier people he's met in African townships seem compared to wealthy acquaintances in New York and Connecticut.

There's no special Shelley launch celebration planned and that his COVID cancelled Antarctica climbing trip is postponed to 2021.

Looks ahead to SpaceX's crewed Demo Two launch and praises the company's culture of moving fast and accepting risk.

Credits SpaceX with flipping the US rocket industry, embarrassing legacy contractor ULA, and reviving belief in ambitious moonshots.

Reflects that entrepreneurs need belief in their own vision and enough conviction to make others believe in it too, despite high odds of failure.

Shares a personal story of meeting Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal near CU Boulder during recruiting trips.

McAfee coin news is progressing well with Cardano org.

Compares the Obamagate FISA spying allegations to Watergate, warning that using surveillance on political opponents sets a dangerous precedent.

Calls for a constitutional convention, arguing elections are vacuous when candidates are pre selected and voters in safe states have no real say.

Warns America is fracturing into tribalism and could face civil war within one or two decades if the division continues.

Reacts to the unrest in Washington and cites a case of police brutality that permanently blinded a child.

Blames the war on drugs and revenue driven policing incentives for a culture that hides officer misconduct.

Condemns civil asset forfeiture as legalized theft, describing how police can seize cash without proving a crime occurred.

Recalls the 2012 Republican convention rule change that silenced Ron Paul's delegates and says he feels for Bernie Sanders supporters facing the same tactics.

Shares that he was born on Maui and still returns to Hawaii whenever he can.

Confirms a PRISM identity demo is planned for the July virtual summit.

Responds to a viewer's own roadside cash seizure story, calling it another example of the theft state.

Switzerland has no single head of state, instead ruled by a rotating committee of equals.

Closed borders are delaying a planned trip to see his Toronto based chief of staff.

Confirms PRISM uses decentralized identifiers as the basis of its identity platform.

Apologizes for missing stake pool introduction retweets and asks pools to tag him directly.

Greets a viewer from Gillette, Wyoming, joking that it's where his parents live.

Teases that something undisclosed is in the works around McAfee's coin.

He doesn't fear assassination, arguing you can't live in fear and that evil can always be corrected if good people fight back.

Draws a parallel between Julius Caesar's assassination and the risks of overreaching after gaining power.

Jokes that avoiding the Clintons is generally good life advice.

Growing up watching Bob Ross paint as one of his favorite childhood shows.

Google mostly codes in Java, JavaScript, Go, and Python internally and doubts it uses much Rust.

The symbolism behind his office gladiator painting, where mercy and fickle public favor are the real subject.

IOHK's academic stablecoin research spanning monetary policy, technical capability, and regulatory dimensions.

Confirms Haskell remains Cardano's predominant language and that the investment in it is now paying off.

Private transactions and balances could be built if the community votes for it once the treasury system is live.

Contrasts Cardano's coming decentralized treasury with going through a centralized foundation like the Ethereum Foundation's grant program.

Compares treasury funded ecosystem growth to how Bitcoin mining scaled from laptops to warehouses once incentives aligned.

Previews a summit panel with Vint Cerf and Phil Wadler reflecting on internet history and what they'd change knowing what they know now.

Phil Wadler's early pong style game deserves more historical credit alongside his academic career.

Cites Cardano's fixed 45 billion ADA maximum supply against 31 billion circulating, with a monetary policy writeup coming before Shelley.

Highlights the ITN treasury passing 100 million ADA, ready to fund proposals once Voltaire voting turns on.

Banters about Blizzard veterans Mike Morhaime and Bill Roper while joking about the ADA price.

Declares himself an Xbox fan over the PS5 while still respecting Sony's engineers.

Names Frank Lloyd Wright as the obvious answer for favorite architect but says he's never actually liked his work.

Jokes about the Halo soundtrack and Cortana in response to a gaming question.

Clarifies Cardano is an open system anyone can use, including South American vendors, without needing his permission.

Picks Macho Man Randy Savage as his favorite professional wrestler over Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan.

Estimates Cardano's active user base at over 50,000 based on Daedalus downloads, Telegram, and Reddit subscriber counts.

Names Chuck Liddell as his favorite MMA fighter and describes his Microsoft Surface Studio setup.

Shares Randy Savage and Wilt Chamberlain trivia, including Chamberlain's cameo fighting Conan alongside Schwarzenegger.

He never played World of Warcraft and plans a 2021 conversation with Joe Rogan once there's more momentum to discuss.

Names Japanese whiskey as his favorite and says he's stayed sober since December.

Confirms the multi sig scripting language ships around Shelley, with signature coordination remaining the harder unsolved problem.

His Taekwondo and Judo background and picks Tyson over an aging Holyfield.

Jokes that Kachina isn't a spirit guide but IOHK's private smart contract system, named after the actual Kachina spirits.

Reaffirms no second token gets created at the hard fork, the same ADA carries straight over.

Wanting Tesla's new Roadster and shares how he ended up owning a Lamborghini Huracan as a consulting perk.

Gives an update on his horse Jamison and describes his menagerie of rescued, emotionally scarred horses.

ADA is already spendable through Travala for hotel bookings and gives a quick hydroponic farm update.

Confirms Shelley launches around 150 to 300 TPS, competitive for now with more scaling work planned for 2021.

The RINA inspired network stack and the 106 pages of new networking documentation built for Shelley.

Calls Facebook's Libra dead on arrival for offering no real monetary or business innovation beyond scale.

Adding farm animals like Highland cattle and yaks to the property.

Names Chopin as his favorite classical composer and plays a piece he's currently learning on piano.

Hopes to pilot a Wyoming state level voting system within two years, alongside the broader Voltaire voting philosophy.

Picks the Social Network's cover of Creep over the original Radiohead version.

Confirms he knows how to swim despite growing up on Maui.

Using Lion's Mane daily and testing a new transcranial neurostimulation headband for learning.

Names the Ford Taurus as the worst car he's owned and confirms he listens to Metallica.

Clarifies home gardening isn't illegal in Colorado, unlike Michigan's restrictions on seed sales.

He'll stay outspoken rather than soften his image like Zuckerberg despite years of public insults.

Reveals custom tar monster Telegram stickers are being made as a fun way to viral market the project.

Recommends Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning while starting weekly Tai Chi lessons of his own.

NMN and resveratrol supplements for heart health and anti aging, noting resveratrol's poor bioavailability.

Calls the Federal Reserve's six trillion dollars in money printing the biggest ongoing scam.

Praises the Kaiser era Cardano Foundation for rescuing an organization that couldn't clear an audit under the prior Parsons administration.

Credits the foundation for bringing in PwC audits, McCann, and launching the CIP project despite getting little public credit for the cleanup.

Exchange relations and community management have now shifted over to the Cardano Foundation.

Greets a longtime community member and shares a frustrating two week bank wire transfer story while catching up on Legends of Valor.

Reflects on how much easier modern engines like Unreal, CryEngine, and Unity make game development compared to his own era.

Scope, not tools, is the hardest challenge in reviving Legends of Valor given today's far larger design space.

Plans a Rwanda or Uganda based academy that trains local graduates into Haskell and PureScript game developers, similar to the Ethiopia program.

Outlines a possible Kickstarter style crowdfund, similar to Pillars of Eternity, to finance a full Legends of Valor remake.

Admits voxel based graphics never became the bigger trend he once hoped for.

He never followed the Star Citizen saga and agrees to appear on the Crypto and Coffee Live show.

He's heard a lot about voxel rendering through the Ultra platform but has yet to see it actually shipped.

Criticizes Twitter's fact checking of Trump as exposing the hypocrisy of platforms claiming neutrality while selectively enforcing rules.

Argues major social networks function as de facto utilities and shouldn't let a small group in San Francisco decide what counts as truth.

Proposes turning social platforms into open protocols, drawing lessons from Steem's mix of good and bad ideas.

Some questions are above any single company's pay grade, pointing to presidential power over nuclear weapons and JSOC as context for why Zuckerberg is playing it smart.

Concludes the real fix is liberating users into decentralized, censorship resilient protocols with private curation layered on top.

Signs off after nearly two hours, thanking everyone for a good night.