broadcasting live from warm sunny colorado always warm always sunny always colorado at least recently it's negative five out it's not warm at all it's cold it's very cold and i'm wearing my yukata again it's a beautiful thing to wear on valentine's day and i figured i'd come into the office and spend some of valentine's day with you guys how about that yes i love this day it's a fun one it's an excuse to buy lots of chocolates and flowers and when you get addicted to it you just buy tons of people chocolates and flowers because [ __ ] it why not so the hype train is is going and i see a lot of newcomers to the cardinal community and i figured probably be a good idea to make a video and talk a little bit about who we are for all of you who are new here this is a no-hype community this is a community that does not care about price from the leader on down and the leader is on down in the bottom on up we don't do things to try to influence the market or cycles we do things to build things we do things because we're legitimately excited about the utility and progress of the ecosystem if this does not appeal to you uh there are ecosystems that do do that uh tron as an example and there's dozens of others you should probably leave now and go over there when you're in cardano we're here to change the world we're here to do interesting things we're here to do research we're here to write code and so forth now lately i've been legitimately very excited because for about three years now we've been commercially running around trying to convince nation states big companies running pilots doing all kinds of things and we're starting to finally see substantive progress in that vision it's always hard to get a thousand no's or pilots that don't go anywhere or mousse and the commercial viability of the deal doesn't look good but when you finally get to a point where what you've done starts to bear fruit and it can bear fruit with potentially millions to tens of millions of users with a commercial path that allows you to have a continental play that's a moment to celebrate and enjoy and take in it's a validation of everything that we sought out to do six years ago it's a validation of this entire ecosystem of our technology of who we are and how hard that we worked so yeah i'm gonna celebrate that even if for some bizarro reason the country falls apart it doesn't materialize the fact that we got it so far that it's where it's at i'm going to celebrate that we all worked really hard our people on the ground worked really hard and i enjoy the fact that they finally have something so substantial to put their flag in it's easy to do defy i laugh when people say how will you catch up with ethereum's network effect it doesn't exist what 80 000 developers compared to 22.6 million developers only 31 of the new dapps deployed in 2020 were on ethereum it cost 50 bucks to do anything even send a transaction and i have to compete with that that's like a karate match where the other person is 96 years old and is in a wheelchair i'm not worried about it not worried about it at all it's not a competition at all let them go do their thing great i am so glad that as the first mover they were able to accumulate a little bit of a monopoly as mosaic did in the browser wars as myspace did in the social media wars there that network effect means nothing to our industry what really means things is who have you helped where have you gone what have you accomplished who is using this application who will be using it five years from now 10 years from now 15 years from now and how is that changing their lives for example all the time people come to me and say i'd love to do something in africa or i'd love to donate but i can't even move money and give money to people in uganda or tanzania much less a loan or an insurance product or what have you the markets just simply don't work at all some days they're okay other days they're not and it's just a flip of the dime and if we're really here and serious about what this technology means and what it's going to do for the world when we look five years 10 years 15 years 20 years into the future we have to ask ourselves is it going to be the case that the average person in africa who wants to get a loan does so through a peer-to-peer application as opposed to a bank will the average person who wants to send money from their home to someone else somewhere in the world will they use western union or paypal or some service like that or they use a peer-to-peer application that's totally decentralized we are on a path to destiny everything we do is lining up to take us to that particular reality those are the billions of users that not only will enrich the network and make it something worthwhile but will change the entire fabric of how the world works and make it more fair and more just and more transparent every bit of commercial progress we make as a company as a protocol as a community towards that end makes me incredibly happy the price goes way up it goes way down guys i've been in crypto so long i remember when bitcoin was under a dollar and i remember when it went way up and i remember when it collapsed way down and you know what that's the cycles and that's what happens and if that's what matters to you stop listening to me go do something else i don't know why it goes up or down i don't think anybody does the technical analysis is useless the fundamental analysis is useless there's too many unknowns in this environment but what i do know is this tech works this ecosystem has finally built something that actually deserves to exist it's nothing but promises before and potential and maybe one day but the reality is we as a community we as an ecosystem are getting dangerously close to that threshold where it goes from potential to reality that's what i care about and then i care about how do we make that a reality for not just the thousands and the hundreds of thousands and the millions how do we make that a reality for the billions and how do we make that a reality for everyone over a period of 10 or 20 years that's the point those are the things that get me excited get me waking up and going around and just fired up ready to go yeah if you build something that billions of people use yeah of course it's going to be probably one of the most valuable things on the planet but the value comes from the fact that the people use it they do something with it it's integral to their lives it's an essential component of it and it's a value that's spread around the entire globe and it's a platform for people to host their dreams their visions their realities with how many people live unfortunate lives for no consequence of their own no fault of their own think about that take it out of yourselves for a moment and realize that it's not a fair world until it's fair for all of us and it's unacceptable that in 2021 an age of wonder billions of people still do not have access to basic things that we take for granted every day especially when we have a solution it's one thing to lament about the evils of corruption and bad systems and broken societies it's another thing entirely to know you have the cure in your hands but do nothing about it not be part of it to be apathetic or cynical or say that somehow these people don't deserve it and let's be clear let's be frank this is the cure there's nothing in my life i have been more certain about than that and i see it in the way this technology evolves i see it in the way this technology collaborates with people how it inspires people i see it in the hopes and dreams of young entrepreneurs and we as humans have witnessed this before we saw it with the dot com revolution we saw it with the software revolution we saw it with the computing revolution we saw it with the energy revolution the aerospace revolution every time you have a transformative technology that brings us together and changes the way we live the young gets so incredibly inspired and they wake up every day dreaming about how they can take that to the next level the difference here is it's not regional it's not a hollowed few companies in silicon valley or new york city who say hey let's get it done instead it's local to everyone the people who are most inspired are people who don't live in california they live somewhere else and that is new and while the past rhymes it's always different every time and it is here so i figure i just make this to the newcomers just to let them manage expectations you know it's a great ecosystem we have the best people we have the best technology we have the best engineering and every now and then we have some fun and not every tweet or every communication is some subtle message of fortunes in the future sometimes it's enjoying the present and the moment and loving the fact that we have already accomplished so much so quickly sometimes it's loving each other because we've all gone on this journey together and we've gone through hell when shelley was a mantra that we listened to and endured for years we were scorned and spit upon as an ecosystem we were called just a wallet even today they say just a wallet the new one is ghost chain even though we have billions of dollars of transaction volume every day ghost chain is what they say every day and then after that it'll be something else and something else and something else every single member of this ecosystem who's been here for a while has endured profound criticism they've been attacked demonized beaten up by their peers for having the audacity to believe that maybe just maybe people want to wake up every day and make the world a better place and that's not a scam they would show the papers the code the effort the progress the people and everybody just put blinders on and their fingers and their ears and now the most insulting thing of all is that people are actually starting to pay attention to us not because of the hard work we've done but because the price went up people in my own social circles ignored me for a long time i cannot tell you how many text messages and telegram messages and pms i've gotten facebook messages things well i'm so proud of you congratulations as if we've achieved a great thing because the markets decided to go up a little bit and i say to myself what about all the years all the papers we're nearly at 100 papers you know we've written so much code we keep growing we keep having these huge community milestones what about catalyst we're fundamentally transforming everything we touch but there was never once a congratulations for that because people stay at the shallow surface level and all the love we have right now that you're seeing and the euphoria you're seeing it will completely disappear in a bear market regardless if it's our fault or not if bitcoin goes to five thousand dollars probably the entire cryptocurrency market will collapse does that in some way invalidate everything we've done all the things we've accomplished and if bitcoin goes to a hundred thousand dollars because apple decides to buy some of it and u.s regulators decide to be a little nicer and we go to the moon as a consequence does that somehow make us geniuses does that somehow make everything we've done valid no it works in both directions and the answer is still the same in both directions we are only validated if the things we build work and they work for the people we build them for and that's what we're trying to do every single day and every now and then we get close to being able to close something and it looks like this time we finally did it that truly shows the mission is working it creates an inevitability behind the vision that will make everything that i've done in my career worth it and everything you've sacrificed for worth it if you're really paying attention so those are the things i'm proud of and happy about i can't help you with the rest and yeah we have a lot of great news coming as i mentioned there's new markets opening up uh there's tons of progress on the smart contract side tokens are coming and yes our technology in my view is significantly better than all of our nearest neighbors because we thought about it we didn't just have this stupid silicon valley move fast and break things and burden the world with your mistakes for the next 40 years we actually took the time and the decency to write real protocols and do real science because it's necessary if at the very least to be respectful to the people who use the systems and not our own wallets and at many times it was very frustrating to spend years doing things that no one cares about and then be criticized for it and called slow or or bad or whatever and then for people to scratch their heads when we're somehow successful and act as if it was just a surprise anyway we earned it so i figured i'd make this video because i'm just getting a little tired of um first the unnecessary euphoria second the fairweather traders and these other people guys cut it out and understand what this ecosystem is about understand who we are and understand what holds this community together in the coming months there's going to be a lot of great news and a lot of progress on every single front also in the coming months every six to eight weeks there's going to be a catalyst fund rolling out and they keep growing in size and soon dozens and then hundreds eventually of projects will be funded and a tsunami wave of news will be flowing from them next month our network is completely turned over to the spos instead of a hybrid network with some federated nodes and uh 70 plus percent spo control 100 spo control that's the biggest milestone in our ecosystems history we did it we built the best proof of stake protocol and we have a beautiful path to evolve that protocol to keep up with emerging technology and to solidify the gains that we already have and that's just one of many things that are coming so why not celebrate we did it it's inevitable to get to basho we know what hydra looks like we know how to get that there and it fits hand in glove with the way we designed dora boras and our smart contract model we know what to do to make native assets the best in class we know what to do to make daedalus the best in class we understand what the regulators want we know how to integrate an identity center that can make things just great you know there's a lot of future proofing that goes into the designs of these things and we know exactly where to go and by 2025 and as soon as we finish the old 2020 stuff and we turn it all on then the community can come together and say that vision makes sense or say no we have a better one and they'll decide if that's where they want to go and if they do the next five years will have total clarity on the march and the dreams and ambitions and goals will be better than just let's build something that has the potential it'll be let's make sure that that potential is realized it'll be let's instead of let's build the best cryptocurrency let's build a true financial operating system for the planet and instead of let's build it with a few companies it'll be let's build it with dozens of companies and millions of community members that's going to happen and that's this year where will we be in 10 years 20 years 30 years as we keep this up that's the point of cardano that's the point of my life's work and what we do every single day and who we are as an ecosystem in a community whatever that's valued or priced markets will decide that it's not my place to say and if all you care about is that again this is not for you because it's too hard it'll take too long for you there's no get rich quick in cardano it's get it's dragged through the mud it's tough there's a lot to read there's a lot to do there's a lot to think holding ada isn't a passive affair you have to think about things you have to think about the stake pools and delegation policy you have to think about how to vote you have to think about how to participate in the ecosystem you're not just a random member you're part of a community that pushes itself and has a vision a dream and a direction and a goal it's very different than just holding bitcoin like tesla does or any of these other things and saying ha or being part of ethereum and sunshine and unicorns and look how smart we are being part of the next big thing this is about a commitment to changing the world at least for me that's how i view it and that's how i'd like to be judged so thank you all for listening i figured i'd make a quick video about it happy valentine's day i love you all it's a beautiful day and let's all have ada as our valentines she was a good good woman cheers