There is a lot of criticism of the founding entities (IO, Emurgo, CF, Intersect) in regards to what their "mandate" is. What is their lane and should they or are they allowed/expected to drift outside of it?
What I don't believe we've ever asked ourselves, as the Cardano community, is: what is the mandate of the Treasury? Why does it exist? How long should it exist? What should it be used for?
We've seen heavy spending on research and development (R&D) and "core infrastructure", neither of which are ever able to provide clear, direct ROI to the Treasury by their nature. They create the rails of the ecosystem that potentially enable businesses to use and build on the Blockchain. This makes it difficult to ever truly assess the "value for money" of these spends and understand whether we are being financially prudent or excessive.
Contrast with a lot of the rationales that we see r.e. business development and marketing proposals. These proposals do have at least some clear ability to show that they bring users, transaction volume, and value to the ecosystem. Yet, there is a pervading feeling that I get personally, when reading these rationales, that all of this spend is expected to somehow justify and return all funding back to the Treasury.
My question is, why do we have this double standard? Why MUST the Treasury be refilled? This gets to the heart of what we believe the mission of the Treasury should be, collectively.
I would prefer to see that we encourage all proposals to demonstrate how the spending you're asking for now will, in the long term, decrease your reliance on funding from the Treasury in the future. A business (or program) that is sufficiently capitalized has their own funding for research and development, can contribute back to open source development (skill or funding) for critical infrastructure, and should invest in their own marketing and user acquisition to grow their own business which leaves more room for more R&D, etc...
I personally hope that we, as a community, do not view the Treasury as something that must exist in perpetuity to continuously fund business models and efforts that exist only to justify their ask in the following year; but instead exists to jump start a strong, stable, and flourishing economy that gives back and supports the critical infrastructure and community it relies upon.
Hording the Treasury like some dragon's mountain of gold, particularly in this industry, feels akin to stockpiling floppy disks at the time when writable CDs, DVDs, and USB sticks started to emerge. The writing is on the wall and we can either use the resources at our disposal to adapt to the times and ensure our long term future or we will be left with a pile of relatively useless plastic wondering why no one wants to buy them.
This does not mean I think we should blow through this great asset we have, we do still need to fund those things like R&D and infrastructure for at least a few more years while the economy grows, but we need to have a plan that transcends simply gazing upon and admiring "Our Precious".
Cardano holders: you can now claim the Midnight ($NIGHT) airdrop using your Trezor 🎉
We’ve published a simple step-by-step guide 👇
https://t.co/Z80z9WEePU
@Miller_19k My family has an annual silly string fight on Christmas morning. Lasts about 3-5 minutes and is a great time every year. Then the kid who cleans up the most gets an extra treat or present. Whatever we really decide as a reward varies year to year.
I’m 💯 okay with @InputOutputHK and @IOHK_Charles having voting rights (especially when CF is voting). IOG has done more for #Cardano than ANY other organization and that should be given at least the right to vote with their share of #ADA.
@SiDiESbyCDS @InputOutputHK@IOHK_Charles Then what are your thoughts on limiting a DRep to ~2-3% max of the total vote? Then would you feel more comfortable with CF and IOG distributing their votes to various DReps?
@ItsDave_ADA Not able to be super engaged right now. Who is it? If you’re not wanting to say publicly, please feel free to DM. I want to double check all my stuff to delegate to smaller representation that I still vastly agree with.
I think the budget should be 10-15% of available ADA. Whatever currency the devs are using, they can do a rough calculation. However, we need to somehow account for the volatility of crypto as a whole from the time that they submit the proposal to the time that it gets funded. No need to underfund or overfund a project due to timing.
This is a true story:
I sold every single $ADA I owned at the bottom ($0.30ish) to build TapTools.
Took out a second mortgage on my house because we couldn't afford more compute and storage for Cardano historical data.
Ended up having to sell my house.
I lived in my car for weeks in the Michigan winter, all the while working on free wifi at Starbucks.
I've dedicated the last 3 years of my life to this chain.
I’ve put everything on the line for Cardano because I believe in its potential to change the world.
This isn’t just a project; it’s my purpose. Being all-in isn’t a choice—it’s who I am, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let’s build something that lasts.
This is Charles Hoskinson.
In 2013, Hoskinson quit his consulting job and started Cardano (2015).
He now wants Cardano to become a Bitcoin Layer 2.
(Integration is already happening)
A thread🧵👇