AMA 06/21/2021

Recaps his return from Dallas and Austin, including a Texas Rangers game.

Recaps his five and a half hour Lex Fridman podcast appearance, a wide ranging conversation covering everything from simulation theory to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The polarized reaction to the interview, calling himself the Rorschach test of the cryptocurrency space.

Plans a 15 day fast to beat his previous record, inspired by a conversation with Lex Fridman.

Plans comparative bloodwork before and after the fast through his biotech company.

Gives an update on Alonzo Blue nearing completion, Alonzo White shipping within the week, and a staged rollout to SPOs on the testnet.

Outlines Alonzo Purple as the public devnet where DeFi and stablecoin projects will be able to deploy.

Teases an upcoming Cardano360 show and calls July pivotal for the hard fork combinator event and a new Daedalus.

Previews the Shelley Summit in September at the University of Wyoming with a digital component for remote attendees.

Confirms the stablecoin research paper is still on track for end of month publication, with formal proofs underway.

Dismisses the China mining ban as a recurring seasonal event, noting most Chinese hash power reportedly went dark.

Lists his favorite video games of all time, led by Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate and Arcanum.

Reflects on the golden age of PC gaming, when limited graphics forced developers to focus on writing and plot.

Laments Heroes of Might and Magic's decline after 3DO ran New World Computing into the ground.

Picks Ron Paul over Rand Paul without hesitation.

He will not chase Mark Cuban, arguing a real platform earns adoption on its own merits.

Points to a YouTube video for his thoughts on NoFap rather than answering directly.

Confirms the hello world round trip script was designed for the Alonzo Blue partner testing.

Algorithmically generated stablecoins are the dApp category he is most intrigued by, calling the goal a bank in the sky.

Favors an elastic block size that expands and contracts with system level parameters over a simple uncapped one.

Mutable state and bank style accounting are harder to build on extended UTXO than on the account model.

Names the Lex Fridman podcast, Sam Harris and Film Cow's animated shorts among his favorite YouTube channels.

Expects the Boston Fed's open sourced digital dollar code to resemble Algorand.

Confirms he expanded the Edinburgh center's research agenda to include central bank digital currencies, led by Professor Emilios.

Cardano has been in talks with El Salvadoran officials and he may make a state visit.

Reports his bison herd has grown to more than 400 head.

Is open to a Sam Harris podcast collaboration someday.

Calls Bitcoin SV the closest thing in crypto to a true cult, saying no serious developer has ever approached him about building on it.

Tether's centralized, faith based backing cannot stay in a gray area forever at its current scale.

Compares a Tether failure to Lehman Brothers and AIG, warning of a cascading market failure.

Predicts regulators would arrange a shotgun wedding rescue for Tether rather than let it collapse outright.

Advises aspiring mathematicians to fall in love with problem solving and to learn proof assistants like Lean.

Recommends G.H. Hardy's books, citing his own background in number theory and the Hardy Littlewood circle method.

Suggests typesetting homework in LaTeX early, studying for the Putnam and joining a problem solving group.

Encourages contrarian thinking about paradoxes like the divergent sum equaling negative one twelfth, valuing elegant proofs over brute force ones.

Jokes that he is not a lizard person, he is with the snake people.

He and Tone Vays remain friendly in person despite Vays's on air skeptic act.

Promises to share a favorite dad joke later in the stream.

Warns against adding fruit or sugar to a fast since it spikes insulin and blocks fat metabolism.

Names lion's mane as his favorite mushroom.

Rebuts a CoinTelegraph op ed calling academic peer review toxic, calling it a grasp at straws against Cardano.

Computer science peer review is conference based, double blind and much faster than other fields.

The point of peer review is independent validation from people with no financial stake in the outcome.

Contrasts Cardano's research with the reproducibility crisis exposed by fake papers submitted to fields like gender studies.

Holds up Ben Goertzel's dense general intelligence paper to ask how any journalist could vet it without peer review.

Argues peer review lets journalists fact check crypto projects' technical claims instead of guessing.

The ultimate test is code deployed and left unbroken, pointing to Ouroboros running inside a 40 billion dollar system.

Envisions a decentralized academic ecosystem where tenure hungry researchers worldwide advance Cardano's science for free.

Recommends Jeremy Avigad's new logic textbook and Tarski's book on logic.

Names Dave Chappelle and George Carlin as his favorite comedians.

Picks Colonel O'Neill as his favorite Stargate character.

Confirms he is currently writing a book.

Explains why he stays on Twitter despite worsening censorship and signal to noise, citing the connections it enables.

Revisits the backlash over telling a troll off after they mocked a supermarket shooting, noting he also donated a tweet's proceeds to victims.

Reflects on becoming a public figure who gets hated by people who have never met him.

Says social media let him meet people like Vasil in Bulgaria, but warns of its addictive dopamine pull.

Colonizing Mars raises bigger questions than food, like whether to terraform the surface or burrow underground.

The team wrote a research paper on proof of burn.

Questions why gain of function research on pathogens like avian flu is permitted at all given the catastrophic downside.

Imagines a coronavirus with a much higher fatality rate collapsing society and possibly triggering war.

Compares lab leak risk to a lottery, where enough attempts eventually produce a catastrophic winner.

Suggests the Wuhan lab leak could have come from one infected researcher visiting a wet market.

Calls engineered pathogens a more urgent risk today than long term artificial intelligence, citing a recent Lex Fridman episode.

A website for his biotech company is coming once it exits stealth mode.

Plans to redo his security lecture video using feedback from dozens of infosec professionals who emailed him.

The market has already been in a bear phase for a while, citing Dogecoin's sharp drop.

Jokes that someone who sold all their ADA should treat themselves to a meatball sandwich.

He is learning Texas Hold'em from books.

Rules out ever living in Austin, calling himself a Wyoming and Colorado guy.

His Joe Rogan appearance will happen after Goguen ships.

Recalls modifying a Minecraft 1.2.5 wheat texture into diamonds as the only plugin he ever touched.

He drives a Lamborghini rather than a BMW, Mercedes or Audi.

Scarlet Witch alone could not beat a Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet.

His Great Pyrenees Freya keeps trying to wander off, as the breed does.

Picks the Luclin expansion as his favorite for EverQuest.

Confirms he is drinking coffee on the stream right now.

Names his dogs Prince and Piper.

He has not been to Starbucks in years after being a longtime regular, as their values no longer align with his.

Promises another TED talk once the Africa work is done, as a bookend to what he said he would do.

Is looking forward to Diablo 2 Resurrected.

Miami is already crypto friendly and could become the C Fund's new headquarters instead of California.

Gives an update on Mastering Cardano, with Jim Caldwell drafting a comprehensive table of contents.

The Babylonian campaign is his favorite in the original Age of Empires.

Bill Gates buying huge tracts of farmland as a straightforward inflation hedge rather than a conspiracy.

Active management of land, whether farming or rental property, drives better returns but costs more time.

He is a fan of Linus from Linus Tech Tips but has never met him.

Lists Meiringen, Lucerne, Zug and Zurich among his favorite places in Switzerland.

Picks the Blood Ravens as his favorite Warhammer 40k successor chapter.

The only island he would buy is Lanai, to open it back up to the public as a native Hawaiian.

Calls Leto II the best god emperor in the Dune universe ahead of the new movie.

Riffs on the Beatles' Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude when asked if he likes the band.

People who hate ADA are really projecting what they see in themselves.

Continued unconstrained money printing puts the world on the road to serfdom.

Kiva as the microfinance platform he closes every AMA by lending through.

Browses Central American borrowers on Kiva and settles on El Salvador given its crypto friendliness.

Funds Maria Santos, an 80 year old El Salvadoran widow, to restock her small store.

Hopes to bring peer to peer lending and a stablecoin to Cardano so loans like this can happen directly onchain.

Signs off after a long day, thanking everyone for listening.