2021-11-13 · timestamps by StakeLake [LAKE]
AMA 11/13/2021
- Return from a month across South Africa, Zanzibar, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Egypt reinvigorated about why Cardano was built.
- Argue Ouroboros and extended UTXO already gave Cardano an unimpeachable root of trust and a parallelizable computing model that critics underrate.
- Preview 2022's roadmap: three hard fork combinator events, the Plutus Application Backend reaching mainnet, Mithril, Hydra, and a Catalyst funded meta government.
- Dismiss Twitter and Reddit criticism as chasing vanity metrics, and rebut specific claims from a London Real professor and Simon Dixon.
- Lay out a personal philosophy of inclusive accountability, sound money, and using wealth to endow durable institutions like formal mathematics research.
- Field a wide-ranging grab bag on bison ranching, sci-fi novels, Legends of Valor, Elon Musk, and a long take on communism versus capitalism.
130 entries
Open the AMA back in Colorado with a recap of a month long trip through South Africa, Zanzibar, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Egypt.
Credits John O'Connor's groundwork for meeting heads of state and businesses across the African countries visited.
Praises World Mobile's progress on Zanzibar's blue economy and telecom rollout.
Calls Burundi virgin territory for a national census and national ID system covering 12 million people.
Only 2.6 percent of Burundi is connected and 11 percent electrified, framing the gap as opportunity.
Calls Ethiopia's civil war a real humanitarian crisis and send thoughts to those affected.
Recaps Kenya meetings with microfinance institutions on blockchain based credit and reputation systems.
Reflects on Egypt's overpopulation and hyper urbanization along the Nile and Cairo traffic.
Teases a larger than expected Africa investment fund spanning infrastructure and crypto.
Frames nation building projects as three to seven year efforts that cannot be rushed despite setbacks.
The ministry of education deal in Ethiopia is still progressing despite the civil war.
Contrasts Cardano's long term design with a dopamine addicted, instant gratification culture.
Bitcoin's unimpeachable root of trust as the one thing even critics never dispute.
Claims Ouroboros replicates Bitcoin's unimpeachable root of trust as Cardano's foundational layer.
Predicts a future Turing Award for the Ouroboros paper authors.
Defends extended UTXO as the most parallelizable smart contract model despite scaling criticism.
Input endorsers let work happen between Ouroboros heartbeats to raise throughput.
Praises Mithril's inclusive accountability for enabling lightweight client verification.
Survey a fast growing dApp constellation including SpaceBudz, Tomi Wallet, cNFT drops, and SundaeSwap nearing launch.
Previews three 2022 hard fork combinator events set for February, June, and October.
Parallel release cycles for the PAB, wallet backend, Hydra, Catalyst, and Mamba sidechains.
Cites nearly 10 percent of ADA supply now voting in Cardano's grassroots democracy.
Plans a long tail of Ouroboros optimization plus layer two and sidechain infrastructure for 2022.
Project Cardano reaching Africa's 1.2 billion unconnected people through Prism where rivals cannot.
Pushes back on Twitter and Reddit critics chasing price and vanity metrics over fundamentals.
Argues Cardano reached Bitcoin level stability and trust faster than Bitcoin itself did.
He is at peace with Cardano's architecture and unbothered by critics.
Announces open source governance scaffolding and a Catalyst funded meta government coming in 2022.
Cardano is not for everyone and that changing the world is inherently hard.
Calls Cardano his life's work, one he expects to keep pursuing decades from now.
Cites exploding US debt and real inflation near 20 percent as evidence the legacy system is rigged.
Rejects a Zuckerberg style dystopian metaverse run by an unaccountable tech elite.
Frames crypto's mission as inclusive accountability and transparency grounded in math and incentives.
Questions what value even means when an NFT can outprice a lifetime of human labor.
Warns hyperinflation is turning everyone into a millionaire the way it did in Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
Recalls staying in crypto since it was worthless because the work itself is worthwhile.
Muses on life between two deaths and choosing meaning over accumulation.
Argues blockchain governance gives ordinary people their first real say, unlike historical rule by kings and elites.
Points to Catalyst's self funding treasury growing to 1.4 billion dollars in 24 months.
Claims ADA issued through Catalyst will outvalue nation state money because it resists inflation and manipulation.
Ground Cardano's methodology in old fashioned enlightenment science and peer review.
Over 120 published papers and growing nation state interest from El Salvador and African states.
Envisions Cardano becoming the trusted backend for elections and supply chains worldwide.
Wraps the opening speech and transition into taking AMA questions.
A 2025 roadmap is being scoped by a working group once Basho and Voltaire land.
Confirms the Plutus Application Backend targets a November mainnet after its testnet rollout.
Compares the PAB's open, forkable rollout to Wi-Fi 6 router vendors racing a draft spec.
The PAB's September slip came from wallet backend integration issues and staff emergencies.
China takes crypto seriously enough to build a digital yuan for Belt and Road debt diplomacy.
Names Jean-Leon Gerome as his favorite painter.
Rebuts a professor's London Real claim that Cardano tops out at 0.5 transactions per second.
EUTXO makes Hydra state channels easier than account based models like Avalanche.
NFTs can carry transitive royalties that fund charities in perpetuity.
Confirms new masks are coming with Colorado themed photos to follow.
Talk bison ranch operations, guided hunts, and hay stockpiles for winter.
Calls two million wallets a strong milestone on a path toward twenty million.
Muses about storing DNA on chain via private smart contracts and trusted hardware enclaves.
Investing in Colossal's woolly mammoth de-extinction project.
He would love to appear on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2022.
Jokes that reading 1984 just means checking Facebook.
Fans to lobby the Cardano Foundation for a Ledger Live grant.
Lists regrets including skipping a prototyping year and a proper reference client before building Cardano.
Stresses the Cardano network has never gone down despite three full rewrites.
Names mobile and browser usability as a top 2022 priority.
Confirms still using his old PGP key.
A Jordan Peterson podcast would be fun.
A Will Smith in the snow joke.
Plans to celebrate SundaeSwap's launch day with the team like a Pizza Day style event.
Dismisses the new Bayverse Transformers movie as too simple for his taste.
Reading The Three Body Problem and a weekly science fiction reading habit.
Still hunting for an artist to draw his lobster comic.
He checks the ADA price only through a daily consolidated market report.
Recalls a childhood cat and rate bison meat leaner and tastier than beef.
Recommends Denver's Buckhorn Exchange as his favorite restaurant.
He would join Andrew Yang's podcast whenever invited.
Praises Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash while working out.
Waves off a troll asking if Solana flipping Cardano worries him.
An Osaka tiny bar story to explain why crypto tourists from other chains don't get Cardano.
Calls Cape Town wonderful, with great food and people.
Fires back at Simon Dixon's claim that Cardano launched as a scam coin.
Buying the IP for the 1990s open world game Legends of Valor.
Plans a remastered open source edition of Legends of Valor plus a AAA sequel built in Unreal 5.
Crypto Bison remains the primary gaming priority for a 2022 release.
Admits lots of walking but no real workouts during the Africa trip.
Console a viewer grieving their father with Ernest Becker's Denial of Death and his own family losses.
Brushes off a jab about only answering fan questions and expecting negative press.
Shouts out Lex Fridman watching in the chat.
Names Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick as favorite classic sci-fi authors.
He is getting back into fantasy reading alongside science fiction.
Welcomes a possible collaboration with Epic's Tim Sweeney on finance and tech.
Staying in touch with Matt Sorum and a possible Zombie Lobster album.
Recommends Josiah Ober's Demopolis on classical versus liberal democracy shaping Voltaire's design.
Drafting a Cardano constitution informed by the founding fathers and behavioral economics like Freakonomics.
Picks Mithril, Hydra, and Voltaire as the updates he is most excited for.
Points a C++ compiler engineer to the open source Yella repo to contribute.
Details the Mamba EVM sidechain bridge work landing around January ahead of Yella.
Jokes that formally verified code is correct by construction but probably slow as hell.
Insists wealth means nothing to him beyond comfort, and explains what keeps him motivated against haters.
Breaks criticism into misunderstanding to educate and misincentive to fix through better systems.
Credits free will as the ability to choose your reaction to hateful input.
Warns against becoming blameless and narcissistic by tuning out all criticism.
Lays out how to judge whether criticism is about facts, conduct, or irreconcilable values.
Credits mindfulness and meditation with dispassionate self reflection.
Calls personal wealth frozen power that comes with a responsibility to spend it well.
Cites the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics as an example of wealth funding durable institutions.
Compares making mathematical proofs machine checkable to software unit testing and QA.
A life well spent as choosing what durable institutions to leave behind.
Praises Colossal's de-extinction science as aligned with his egalitarian values.
Back paying college athletes for name, image, and likeness, citing South Park's take.
Names George Carlin a favorite comedian while fielding an Elon Musk team up question.
Credits Musk with living in both the engineering world and the Steve Jobs hype world.
Calls Musk's Dogecoin dabble his one failed venture in crypto.
Rules out ever running for president, calling it the worst job in America.
He would rather build a system that removes the need for a presidency.
Confirms peer to peer YubiKey support is coming to the light wallet.
Pushes back on calling Musk merely the stupid person's idea of a smart person.
Ethical intent separates builders like Musk from fraudsters like Elizabeth Holmes.
Compares Musk's ambition to JFK's moonshot promise made before it was provably possible.
Warns Neuralink's brain implants demand more caution than a move fast and break things approach.
Sums himself up in ten words as simply Charles Hoskinson.
Calls communism the greatest evil mankind has produced, citing Mao, Stalin, and Castro's death tolls.
Argues capitalism is incentive neutral while communism always converges on centralized control.
Traces woke postmodernism to the same institutionalize, indoctrinate, criminalize pattern.
Calls himself a recovering libertarian who accepts some need for governance.
Society today is cronyist rather than truly capitalist.
Defends equating communism's death toll with Nazism's despite the discomfort of doing so.
Frames the real question as how much market tinkering makes a society fair, not capitalism versus socialism.
Points a post-scarcity question toward The Venus Project as homework.
Teases an upcoming Cardano powered microfinance platform with Possession instead of a Kiva donation.
Closes the AMA thanking viewers from Colorado.