Odd-Gunnar Stakvik

A Non-Fungible Resource, a passionate blockchain enthusiast and the owner of unsig#27754.
Proud member of Cardano Community.

[Dave @ItsDave_ADA]

I am going to go out on a limb and say something that I think matters for Cardano right now, even if it means putting myself back in the firing line.

Governance is not our biggest problem. Adoption and usage are.

Governance matters, of course it does. It decides how capital is allocated, who is held accountable, and whether the treasury is treated as a productive asset or an endless subsidy pool. But governance only becomes truly valuable when it is directing resources towards a blockchain that people are actively using, building on, and economically depending on.

That is where I think the next phase of Cardano needs to be much more focused.

Leios will be important because it increases Cardano’s capacity. But capacity only becomes valuable when there is demand to actually fill it. A faster road matters most when people actually need to travel on it. Otherwise we risk spending more on infrastructure while the economic activity that should justify that infrastructure remains too thin.

For me, the next major phase of the roadmap should be Adoption.

That means identifying every serious barrier that makes Cardano harder, slower, more expensive, or less attractive to build on, then removing those barriers with discipline. Developer experience matters. Liquidity matters. Wallet onboarding matters. Stablecoin access matters. Integration costs matter. Time to market matters. Reliability matters. Documentation matters. Business confidence matters.

They are the difference between a builder choosing Cardano, or choosing another chain because the commercial path is easier, every time this happens utility is originated elsewhere and this utility drives usage.

We can keep spending time arguing about governance processes, Discord servers, over-complex engineering to solve simple problems, personalities, and who should or should not receive treasury funding. Some of that has its place. But if too much attention is spent there, we risk missing the more important issue, businesses can and will leave, usage can and will fall, builders can and will lose confidence, and infrastructure costs can continue rising without enough activity to support or even justify them.

That is not a sustainable economic model for Cardano.

A blockchain treasury is strongest when usage helps replenish it. Adoption drives transactions. Transactions create fees. Fees support treasury growth. Treasury growth funds further improvements. That is the loop we should be trying to strengthen, whilst also decentralizing our spend to drive competition and make it competitive building on Cardano.

Make Cardano easier to build on. Make it cheaper to use. Make it more attractive for serious businesses. Increase real on chain activity. Retain the builders we already have, our passionate pool of talent that deserves recognition. Give new builders a reason to choose Cardano without needing to be convinced by ideology alone.

Governance can help us get there, but adoption is what makes the whole system economically meaningful.

That is the phase Cardano needs now, not endless over-complicated, controlled and gate governance discussions.

Just my thoughts.

[Race @multiplanet1]

Elon Musk got rejected by Netscape. He walked into the lobby, was too shy to talk to anyone, and walked out. Never got the job.

At his first company Zip2, the board demoted him. Twice. They refused to let him be CEO.

He got fired from PayPal as CEO while flying to his own honeymoon. The board voted him out mid air.

He almost died of malaria in 2000. Ten days in intensive care. Lost 45 pounds. A day from death.

His first child died at 10 weeks old.

His first rocket exploded. Falcon 1, flight one. Burned on the pad.

His second rocket exploded.

His third rocket exploded. The last of his money was nearly gone.

Tesla nearly went bankrupt in 2008. The closest he ever came to a nervous breakdown.

Both companies almost died on the same Christmas Eve.

He was sued by investors. Mocked by the people who built cars before him.

His childhood heroes, the astronauts who inspired him, testified against his company to Congress.

The Cybertruck window shattered on live stage in front of the world.

He overpaid for Twitter by his own admission and watched its value collapse.

He was beaten unconscious as a child and thrown down a flight of stairs.

He has said he goes to sleep alone and it kills him.

He failed in public, over and over, for thirty years.

He is the richest man in the history of the world.

The difference was never the absence of failure. It was the refusal to stop after it.

[$cash @CashAnvil]

Took the weekend to think about the path forward and the team and I have come to a simple conclusion:

We aren't ready to give up on Cardano.

My post went viral and I had people from all chains and walks of life reaching out. My DMs were crazy. Most very positive. Some of it, madly inspiring.

The main take away though was that people still believe in us, and Cardano.

Huge thank you to everyone who reached out. We had multiple parties volunteer to front the 100k ADA for the direct treasury proposal.

This is the Cardano I invested my life into. The Cardano of old, where people had each others backs and we were unified. I felt that again this weekend.

This community is undeniable. Let's lock in our direction and find something we can all get excited about again.

I ain't hear no bell 😤 Updated proposal dropping Soon™

[MB👊 @Mb_you_know]

Cardano is entering a new chapter.

While most people are focused on price, the real story is happening behind the scenes:

🔹 Midnight is now live, bringing privacy-focused applications to the ecosystem.
🔹 Leios is progressing toward massive scalability improvements.
🔹 Bitcoin and Cardano interoperability is becoming a reality.
🔹 New integrations are expanding liquidity, data access, and cross-chain connectivity.

The builders never stopped building.

Whether you're here for DeFi, privacy, governance, or long-term innovation, @Cardano's roadmap is one of the most ambitious in crypto right now.

The next wave won't be driven by hype alone it will be driven by utility.

$ADA #Cardano

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@Mb_you_know @Looky_Lucker @CryptoIRELAND1 @Cryptofly777 @Cardano_CF 💯👍

[NightSwap @NightSwapLabs]

Cardano Community.
Midnight Community.

How many times did they call us dead?

Yet here we are.

Still building.
Still shipping.
Still showing up.

Charles takes a break for 24 hours and the entire crypto space can’t stop talking about Cardano.

That’s not what a dead ecosystem looks like.

If you’re still here, like, repost, and drop a 💙 or 🌓 below.

Let’s show everyone we’re more than alive.

[Sssebi🦁 @Sssebi]

🚨Cardano needeed this crysis in order to push to a new All Time High.

All FUDers and paper hands have now been flushed.

Only the strong and loyal community that will push it to new highs is left.

A new chapter begins.

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@Sssebi 👍

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@ADAProdigy @CashAnvil Support that 100% 👍

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@UtxoSaint We should give money to ideas that has a suststianable business case, people that knows how to build it it and knows how to market it. Same market requirements applies to dapps as everything else.

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@masatoalexander @MonsieurMoth Of course not, why do you mention it at all?

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@masatoalexander @MonsieurMoth Just saying that the income of unsigs at that time had a potential high value and the paradox in this business us to measure value in usd 😄

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@stevenemassey @JaromirTesar @coinbureau Permaware ??????????????

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@IOHK_Charles @coreycosta123 @DeOpenSourceGuy I support you. Let them them attack me and I will suck up their energy until they die.

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@isaacrrr7 Yes

[Cardano YOD₳ @JaromirTesar]

Being a DRep can be incredibly frustrating at times.

Especially if your governance decision is not accepted as a rational choice, but is instead interpreted as an attack on the submitter or the ecosystem.

The submitter can be an influential entity, so it can be brave to be rational.

The more you want to be responsible, the more difficult it is to make the right decision. Often, you know that the decision may be unpopular, and you will lose voting power.

Delegators do not have to read your rationale and can change the delegation based on the vote.

DReps have to choose between a populist choice and a better direction for Cardano, at least from their perspective. Often, these are opposite poles.

It is also a difficult situation for ADA holders, as they can trust DReps but listen to influential actors.

Unfortunately, you may not have time to explain every decision you make because you have dozens of other proposals to process. Time for debate is critically limited.

The research proposal from IO is one example.

Everyone, including DReps, of course, knows that research is essential for Cardano.

But this does not mean that DReps must automatically approve every proposal as submitted on the first try.

DReps do not serve IO. DReps represent ADA holders and serve Cardano.

IO is a for-profit company with many activities. The Treasury is a Cardano asset.

DReps are the ones who decide what Cardano needs and are responsible for what should be funded.

This is how we always wanted it! FEs must hand over power to the community. Remember?

DReps have the right and even the obligation to reject a proposal if they are convinced that it can be improved for the benefit of the ecosystem.

FEs should thank DReps for their rationales, accept feedback, and resubmit their proposals. Others do this routinely. FEs should not be an exception.

DReps try to make pragmatic decisions in a limited time.

I believe that IO will eventually behave pragmatically regarding their proposals, including research ones.

IO needs researchers. They have to decide whether to fire researchers or resubmit proposals. This decision must be made by IO, not by DReps.

Of course, a proposal can be approved on the first try.

Proposals are an on-chain form of dialogue. A NO vote with a rationale is often just a call for improvement.

DReps must expect the submitter to be a pragmatic and mature actor.

IO launched Minimal Viable Governance, so they should understand how it works best. They are just consuming their own product.

DReps and IO have the same goal. We all want Cardano to succeed.

Let's learn to have a constructive dialogue together.

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@MiaAbbotmxpv @CryptoLifer33 Value "savings" for non-banked is the only real use case here ..for btc. Stablecoins will dominate this completely soon. Eth is not qualified to any of these uc's. Cc tradingpair pricing...nahh .. hardly a uc. XB settlement: Btc and eth lacks TPS, and eth is 100% unpred. Tx cost

[Odd-Gunnar Stakvik @oddgunnar]

@JaromirTesar The market.