Update 01/12/2020
Introduction
In this section, Charles Hoskinson introduces himself and provides an update on what's going on with Cardano.
Update on the Incentivized Test Net
- The team responsible for delivery of the incentivized test net had been working for about four months straight without a break.
- Certain bugs and issues that were known were not able to be addressed until the team returned from vacation.
- The team is back at full strength now and working again. A patch for network stability should be issued sometime next week.
- An enormous amount of data has been collected about the use and misuse of the protocol, such as what is the saturation metric, do we need it, should it be adjusted?
- The goals of the incentivized test net are to get to the business of user experience of being a state pool operator and delegation. It is also to look at the incentive scheme and design of the protocol to allow us to tune things live with users.
Purpose of Test Net
- The point of an incentivized test net is for things to break, change, and be tested that aren't necessarily going into mainstream.
- The code that will be deployed in production almost certainly will be Haskell code unless something comes up.
The Importance of Good Engineering
In this section, Charles Hoskinson discusses the importance of good engineering and how it is done. He explains that the Haskell code is designed using formal methods and thoroughly tested to ensure that everything has been designed correctly.
Benefits of Haskell Code
- Bugs, connection issues, and edginess experienced during the incentivized test will not be present in the Haskell code.
- The Haskell code benefits from a large population of stateful operators and all lessons learned about parameterization.
- Good engineering involves dividing problems into simpler ones and systematically working through them with customers to come up with good mitigations.
Development Cadence
- Normal development cadence was slowed down by holidays but is now back on track.
- Weekly to bi-weekly releases for most software products in their portfolio.
- They are far more commercially oriented than ever before and far more disciplined as a company.
Research Agenda for 2020
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about his meeting with their chief scientist at IOHK, Aggelos Kiayias. They discussed their research agenda for 2020 which includes finishing the Ouroboros research agenda started in 2015, producing a post quantum signature scheme for Cardinals, improving network stack design, usage of recursive starts among other things.
Research Agenda Highlights
- Finalizing their 2020 research budget including a donation to the University of Wyoming.
- Hydra protocol should be ready for its first paper submission sometime in February.
- Their proof-of-stake theory has improved to a point where they should have good mitigations for things like spikes of dishonest majority which Ouroboros Genesis currently does not cover.
Conclusion
In this section, Charles Hoskinson concludes by expressing his confidence in the science and engineering behind their protocols. He believes that they will easily be able to satisfy the requirements of Shelley Goguen and get full terror implemented and part if not all of basho implemented this year.
Final Thoughts
- They feel very good and confident with the science and engineering behind their protocols.
- They have a lot of great protocols, ideas, and designs.
Multi-Asset Standard
In this section, Charles Hoskinson discusses the importance of having a good multi-asset standard that covers the grid meaning fungible not fungible regulated and non-regulated.
Importance of Competitive Offerings
- It is important to have competitive offerings within the Cardinal ecosystem for those who wish to issue assets at a compelling reason why our ledger is a better ledger to issue these meta tokens to bring these communities.
- Ethereum has standards such as ERC 20 gr c 721 security token standards and so forth. We must have competitive offerings within the Cardinal ecosystem.
External Information into Network
- There must be some way of bringing external information into the network commonly called Oracle's or data feeds.
- Working with Umberto and the Cardinal foundation to pursue a good Oracle standard for Cardinal.
Identity as First-Class Citizen
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about identity being a first-class citizen in Bitcoin and how it has evolved over time.
Emergence of Identity Standards
- Since the launch of Bitcoin over eleven years ago, we've now seen things like the did standard to self-sovereign identity movement projects like sovereign and hyper ledger Indy emerged their way through.
- The team is building a ledger agnostic identity solution based upon principles from the did standard and hyper ledger Indy called Prism.
Benefits of Identity Solution
- Having an aliasing system as being able to reuse this for pub/sub use it for multi SiC use it for things embedded within contracts.
- Improving user experience everything from human-readable addresses to being able to have direct communications with people being able to have subscription channels for state pools.
Metadata and Data Embedded within Transactions
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about the importance of metadata and data embedded within transactions.
Compliance with Law
- It is becoming increasingly a requirement for our systems to maintain regulatory legitimacy within the developed world.
- There has to be capabilities within the ledger and within transactions so you the users can make decisions about what to do for the transactions you broadcast and for the applications you write in order to stay in compliance with law.
Conclusion
- The four things that we must do in my view for Kokan are multi-asset standard, external information into network, identity as first-class citizen, metadata and data embedded within transactions.
Investment Thesis for Cardinal Ecosystem
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about the importance of providing clarity to the market and investors regarding the investment thesis for Cardinal Ecosystem. He also discusses the need for a formal financial commitment from Mirko towards portfolio companies.
Importance of Clarity in Investment Thesis
- It is important to give clarity to the market and investors regarding what we are looking for as an ecosystem.
- A formal investment thesis will be published on record by Mirko for those who wish to invest and build apps within the Cardinal ecosystem.
Financial Commitment from Mirko
- A firm financial commitment is required from Mirko regarding how much money they intend on investing in portfolio companies.
Geographic Areas of Focus: Africa and Japan
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about two particular geographic areas that are a priority for Cardinal Ecosystem: Africa and Japan. He discusses proposals presented by John O'Connor, Director of African Operations, and requests approval from the Cardinal Foundation. Additionally, he highlights the importance of having a dedicated strategy for Japan.
Presence in Africa
- John O'Connor worked with ice Addis to create a proposal that would allow presence in almost every African country with hundreds if not thousands of meetup groups.
- The proposal aims at exposing millions of people throughout Africa to Cardinal as a platform and inspiring them to do things with it.
Dedicated Strategy for Japan
- The Japanese community is extremely important to us, and we believe in them since they believed in us since the very beginning.
- A dedicated Japan strategy for the second half of 2020 is required to further invest and build up our presence in Japan.
- The Cardinal Foundation needs to begin drafting a strategy and make a financial commitment towards this end.
Upcoming Software Releases and Security Audit
In this section, Charles Hoskinson talks about upcoming software releases and the ongoing security audit with partner Route 9B.
Upcoming Software Releases
- Many software releases are coming up in the horizon, including the Byron reboot shipping with Haskell wallet background integrated.
- The OBFT hard fork is also coming up, which are the last upgrades required prior to the Shelley main net upgrade for the Haskell code.
Ongoing Security Audit
- A security audit is currently underway with partner Route 9B.
- As soon as we have the audit report, remediations will begin. Once finalized, we will publicly publish that report giving some assurance to the community that a third party has reviewed our code or security audit.
Conclusion
In this section, Charles Hoskinson concludes his talk by emphasizing that Cardano's year is this year. He highlights that many things are happening quickly and there are many things yet to come. He encourages everyone to grab a shovel and build a future together.
Cardano's Year
- Cardano's year is this year; many things are happening quickly, and there are many things yet to come.
Building Together
- Everyone should grab a shovel and build a future together.