分类： Cardano

Rest of 2020 for Cardano

ERC-20 Converter and More

As we accelerate toward Shelley mainnet hardfork on 29 July, Charles has explained in a little bit more details on Cardano’s path ahead for 2020.

August is the month of clean up for the core engineering team after the hard work of Shelley mainnet launch. But other teams running parallel projects will still go full steam ahead.

August will be the month of Voltaire, with topics of balloting and dcfunds coming to the fore. The big question here will be “Who should get the money, and for what?”.

We can also expect developments on Ledger, Trezor and Yubikey (firmware, etc) to be announced.

Moving on, in September/October, Native Assets and related topics of security tokens and stable coins will be the focus. In addition, Charles has revealed that there will be a ERC-20 converter built by an external party on a fixed cost contract. This is exciting news because this converter will allow current ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum platform to be redeployed easily onto the Cardano platform. The issue of high gas price might prove to be a push factor for ERC-20 tokens to migrate to Cardano.

Hydra (scalabililty) and Cross-chain communications (inter-operability) will be the focus for the remainder of 2020.

And this is merely the technical roadmap. Hopefully soon we will receive some updates on the commercial and regulatory fronts as well.

Tony and Jimmy Saga

Decentralization: BTC vs ADA

This is an important whiteboard video from Charles that illustrates the path to decentralization (or oops… federation) for both BTC and ADA.

To summarize a 40mins video into a few lines, three factors point in favor of ADA vs BTC:

  • Decentralization does not depend on patented technology (no need for ASICs)
  • Decentralization does not depend on power costs or geography (consume little power)
  • Decentralization does not depend on wealth (as long as you can afford some ADA)
It is crucial for Charles to provide a timely response to Tone and Jimmy’s accusation of Cardano printing free PoS money, for having no security, and for not being decentralized.
 
And to be expected, many Cardano (or PoS) fans are rallying and calling Tone and Jimmy stupid, or worse (or much worse).
 
However, I think that they merely act in a way that is (1) aligned with their BTC interests, and (2) out of fear of both their individual and their chosen tech’s (BTC) impending irrelevance.
 
Once you understand incentives vs outcomes, it all makes sense.
 
 
 

Staking Calculator

Worthwhile to Operate Stake Pool?

IOG has just released its Shelley Testnet staking calculator.

At first glance, we see that reward yield for delegators has gone down quite drastically from ~10% during ITN to ~4.6% for Shelley mainnet.

Although this is widely expected, it will still be pretty disappointing for investors looking for high returns in the crypto space. For perspective, one should note that bank yields globally hover around 0%.

There is no free lunch in the world. The lower returns also make the Cardano eco-sytem more sustainable for the long-term.

One heartening point is that marginal rewards from increasing pledge tapers off quite dramatically (using the start of mainnet settings). Putting up a 200k vs 2m ADA pledge results in a visible, but not too significant yield difference.

While taking into account the issue of Sybil attacks with the introduction of pledges, this does not preclude small pool operators from taking part. I feel that this is important as it’s in line with the spirit of decentralization.

We probably do not want to see FAANG among pool operators!

For more details on the reward parameters settings, please read the blog post “Iterating for growth with IOHK research“.

Scam Alerts

Twitter Hacks and Giveaways

Riding on top of the recent wave of Cardano giveaway scams, Twitter accounts of prominent persons such as Obama, Biden, Bezos, Elon, Gates, etc. were compromised today, and were used by the perpetrators to proclaim BTC giveaways.

Send me 1 BTC and I will send back 2 kind of scams.

Such free lunch is usually met with immediate skepticism by seasoned and wary crypto-folks. But giveaways  by “blue check marks” are rare if not never, and they do somehow offer a sheen of legitimacy.

And this is dangerous.

The use of 2FA and password managers seem unable to stop these hacks, and it is likely that hacker(s) exploited the weak link posed by 3rd party apps connected to Twitter.

Watch the related video of Charles discussing the recent Cardano scams below.

As Cardano progresses and gains prominence, scammers inevitably take advantage of the price bump to swindle unsuspecting ADA holders.

Stay safe on social media. If something sounds too good to be true, it most probably is.

Internet of Blockchains

Of NiPoPow, cLitecoin and GaaS

This video by Charles is mind-boggling stuff.

I had to watch it twice to have any semblance of understanding, as my mind was swirling with endless possibilities during the streams.

As of July 2020, there is no dominant or large-scale practical cross-chain communications among blockchain projects. At least I admit I have not heard of any. And other than the proliferation of ERC-20 coins building atop the Ethereum platform, we have also not seen many popular instances of projects communicating with and riding on services provided by others.

Now we have a grand vision for the future.

Harnessing NiPoPows, blockchain projects can communicate with the Cardano platform if they opt to, and this opens up potentials that are currently unavailable. For example, Litecoin owners can leverage upon Cardano’s governance and voting system and use is for their own cause, and in doing so pay for the services using wrapped Litecoin (cLitecoin) on the ADA blockchain.

Hence we can build an Internet of Blockchains (IoB) to bring out the best in all projects. I do believe that blockchain projects can co-exist, just like fiat and cryptocurrencies can co-exist. This vision by Charles and Cardano simply brings this beautiful and vibrant coexistance into reality.

The possibilities are endless.