September 14, 2022 • 42 mins
As well as our bonus catch-up episode, we’re also bringing you our regular Wednesday edition of the podcast today. Two for the price of one.
One of our most popular videos of late has been our look at the World Economic Forum’s dystopian vision of the future. This is built around the idea that ‘you’ll own nothing and be happy,’ something the folks at the WEF seem to believe is a good thing. Well, we beg to differ.
In the first part of this episode, you’ll hear our assessment of the WEF’s plans, as well as a look at how its stakeholders are starting to implement all the ways they can stop us owning but keep us consuming. We also look back at where these ideas originated - it turns out that concepts like planned obsolescence have been around for a surprisingly long time.
Next up, you’ll hear our update on Cardano, one of the biggest and most talked-about crypto projects going. All the recent talk has been of Ethereum’s upcoming merge, but Cardano has a big upgrade of its own coming up later this month, which will go a long way towards determining whether or not it will be able to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the future. Here’s everything you need to know about where Cardano is right now.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeartMedia: Noel Brown
Editor: Semir Mutapcic
Theme music composed by: Noel Brown
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode from the
midweek edition of the coin Bureau podcast. Every week, I
pick out two of my favorite videos from coin Bureau's
YouTube channel to present to you in podcast form. The
audio you're about to hear is from those videos I've
chosen this week. Many of you have been in touch
to ask whether it's possible to listen to our videos
(00:20):
in podcast format, and so your wish is my command.
This week, I've selected our videos on the World Economic
Forum's chilling plans for our future and our recent update
on Cardano. Now, you may already be familiar with the
phrase you'll own nothing and be happy, But if you're not,
it's something that's been un ironically spouted by the folks
(00:41):
over at the World Economic Forum or WHEF, one of
a number of unelected, unaccountable, and unfeasibly powerful multinational organizations
that shape much of our lives without our knowledge. Many
people seem to imagine that attributing this phrase to the
folks at the WEF is all part of some conspiracy theory,
but it really isn't. This is what they actually believe
(01:03):
the future should look like, and steps are already being
taken to phase out individual ownership of a growing number
of products. In this dive into what a future of
owning nothing might look like, I take a look at
the surprisingly old idea of planned obsolescence and how it's
being used to guide us towards a subscription based future.
(01:23):
Companies across the world are desperate to attract new consumers
and to keep them constantly buying new products. To them,
the idea that people may try and prolong the life
of their devices and products by having them repaired presents
a serious threat to future profits. They're also worried that
demographic trends means fewer consumers overall. Their solution to this
(01:45):
problem means we could one day find ourselves living in
a world where actual ownership of goods, from phones, to
cars to even our homes becomes an outdated concept. It's
a scary thought, though, Fortunately, there are ways to push
back against the West's vision of our future. Keep listening
to find out. Then. In the second part of today's episode,
(02:05):
you'll hear our latest update on Cardarno, one of the
biggest crypto projects out there and one vying for ethereums
crown as the leading Layer one blockchain. All eyes have
been on Ethereum recently as the merge approaches, but Cardaro
also has an important and much delayed upgrade in the works,
now scheduled to happen not long after the merge. The
(02:29):
Vassal hard fork is a big moment for Cardano, and
many aida holders will be waiting anxiously to see whether
it's a success. Stay tuned to get a full low down.
I hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and
I'll be back talking crypto with Mike very soon, so
be sure to stay tuned, and if you want even
more content from coin Bureau, be sure to subscribe to
(02:51):
our YouTube channel and visit us on social media too.
(03:15):
You will own nothing and be happy. This infamous prediction
from the World Economic Forum is recognized by almost everyone
these days, yet there are few who believe it could
ever come to pass. Well, what if I told you
that our ownership of things is quickly disappearing and that
many of us are unknowingly embracing this new normal. Today,
(03:37):
I'm going to tell you about a disturbing trend that's
finding its way into every corner of the economy. Where
this trend came from and why cryptocurrency could be the
only defense. How often do you upgrade or change your phone?
Statistically speaking, your answer will be somewhere in the range
of two to three years. This is consistent with the
(03:59):
lifespan of the average phone battery, which tends to give
out after a couple of years of use, even if
you're taking care of your phone's battery, namely not letting
it drop below or go above the more you know now.
In theory, the solution is simple, just install a new
battery when the current one gives out and enjoy your
phone for another two to three years until you need
(04:21):
to replace the battery again, and so on and so on.
In practice, however, opening your phone and switching the battery
is generally not easy to do and can damage the phone.
This assumes you can even get your hands on a
replacement battery to begin with, which isn't guaranteed. In the
case of newer iPhone models, the phone will actually detect
(04:42):
when you've replaced the battery and will give you all
manner of warning messages which push you to go to
the Apple Store for an extensive repair that could cost
as much as a brand new phone. Now. Critics of
this setup have accurately observed that the inability to independently open,
modern fire, or repair a device that you own means
(05:02):
that you don't actually own it, because ownership literally means
the ability to do all of the above and more.
These and other issues have given rise to a global
movement called right to repair, which has managed to pressure
Apple and other tech giants into making repairs more accessible,
albeit to a limited degree due to the lobbying power
(05:24):
these corporations wield. The right to repair also doesn't always
fix the underlying ownership issue, and this is something that's
been pointed out on many occasions by Louie Rossman, a
popular YouTuber and computer repair shop owner who has gone
head to head with anti repair corporate lobbyists. Now, this
video was partially inspired by Louie's content, and I strongly
(05:47):
suggest checking out his channel if you're interested in the
dystopian direction that technology seems to be heading and want
to know how some folks are fighting back on the
policy front. I'll leave a link to his channel in
the description. Now, as to why the right to repair
doesn't always fix the underlying ownership issue, look no further
(06:07):
than the phenomenon of manufacturers slowing down phones to force
you to buy a new one. Any Android users in
the crowd will know that Samsung was fined for doing
exactly that in eighteen. As is often the case with
big tech companies, Samsung was issued a fine that amounted
to a slap on the wrist compared to the profits
(06:28):
it probably made from artificially slowing down phones, something which
the company is allegedly still doing to this day. This
level of control negates any aspect of ownership, and let's
just hope Salana doesn't do this to its upcoming cryptophones.
More about that in the description Anyway, I digress. Now
(06:49):
it's not just phones either. The practice of forcing people
to upgrade through some nefarious means has found its way
into everything from household appliances to hospital equipment. What's crazy
is that this practice has been around for almost a
hundred years, and it even has a name, planned obsolescence.
(07:10):
Although planned obsolescence has its origins in the early American
bicycle and automobile industries, the term was coined by an
American real estate broker named Bernard London in a paper
titled quote Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence, which he
published in nineteen thirty two. In the paper, Bernard said
that the Great Depression made no sense because quote factories,
(07:33):
warehouses and fields are still intact and are ready to
produce in unlimited quantities, but the urge to go ahead
has been paralyzed by a decline in buying power and
by extension, a decline in demand. Given this situation, Bernard
proposed the following solution quote. I would have the government
assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and
(07:55):
machines to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture when
they are first created, and they would be sold and
used within the term of their existence, definitely known by
the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things
would be legally dead and would be controlled by the
duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment.
(08:17):
In other words, everything produced in the economy would be
artificially made obsolete by the government at a certain date
to cause the population to consume more so that the
economy recovers, while simultaneously providing ample employment, further fostering economic growth. Now,
if you watched our video about how to prepare for
the crypto bear market, you'll know that it was the
(08:38):
Second World War that arguably ended the Great Depression, and
Bernard's problematic idea of planned obsolescence never really caught on
as a result. This is primarily because the post war
period was one of incredible prosperity, particularly for the United States,
as it managed to reap much of the rewards of
victory while incurring little in the way of losses compared
(08:59):
with its ally. The US dollar had also just become
the world's reserve currency. More importantly, the populations of countries
like the United States and Canada exploded after the Second
World War, creating the army of well off old folks
many of us now referred to as boomers. This is
important because the rapid increase in population meant there was
(09:19):
a rapid increase in consumption, and that meant that there
was no need for planned obsolescence business practices. Companies could
comfortably sell high quality hardware that would last for decades
because they knew there would always be another wave of
buyers coming next year as more baby boomers became adult boomers.
This seems to have been the case until the nineteen seventies,
(09:41):
when it became clear that baby boomers weren't having nearly
the same number of children as their forebears. It appears
that many Western countries tried to fill this future demographic
gap by opening their doors to immigration, and this seems
to have worked for a while. By the early two thousands, however,
it became clear that immigration the low wasn't enough to
fill the future demographic gap, which of course continued to
(10:04):
grow as companies needed ever more future consumption to continue
their future expansion, all the while native birth rates continued
to decline. This seems to be the period when Bernard's
idea of planned obsolescence started to become a reality. Companies
were effectively forced into selling low quality products that would
require a repurchase every few years to continue consumption trends
(10:28):
in the absence of a growing population. Now I know
what you're thinking, guy, this is all very interesting. But
what does this have to do with me owning nothing
and being happy? Well, I'm glad you asked, hypothetical impatient viewer.
Any iOS users in the crowd might recall that Bloomberg
reported that Apple will be rolling out a subscription service
(10:49):
for iPhones later this year or early next year. To
be clear, this upcoming subscription service is not at all
like Apple's existing subscription services. That's because it applies to hardware,
not software. The subscription service will be for the physical
phone itself. As Louis Rossman pointed out in his video
(11:10):
reaction to the news, a service is when someone or
something does something for you. A phone is not a service.
It is a product, and it should be entirely yours
from the moment you purchase it. Louis also highlighted the
fact that many Wall Street investors are pushing for publicly
traded companies to adopt this so called hardware as a
(11:31):
service business model because it will make them trade at
higher valuations regardless of their actual earnings, something that's mentioned
in the Bloomberg article. Trading at higher valuations regardless of
actual earnings sounds eerily similar to the E s G
investment trend, which effectively consists of asset managers moving their
money into companies that comply with their ever changing criteria,
(11:54):
causing their stocks to pump even though no actual profits
are being made. While I couldn't find any concrete evidence
that E s G investors are behind this accelerating trend
towards hardware as a service, in various sectors. It wouldn't
be surprising, given that the trend is inherently e s
G friendly. Hardware as a service satisfies environmental criteria because
(12:16):
the number of devices in circulation can be reduced, the
devices in circulation can be reused, and any old devices
can be easily recycled, as you'll likely need to give
back your old device to get a newer version. Hardware
as a service also satisfies social criteria because everyone will
have subscription services for the same devices. There will be
(12:37):
no phone with a better camera or a bigger memory,
nor a faster or slower, or bigger or smaller car,
and that means everyone will be truly equal. Hardware as
a service satisfies governance criteria because it will put the
company producing the product in total control of its creation, use,
and destruction. Anyways, more about e s G in the
(12:58):
description now. Unlike most other e s G related policies,
hardware as a service could actually result in actual profits
because people will be paying subscription services for just about
everything they own until they die. Notably, the subscription costs
could be made low enough so that these products are
available to more people, not just the privileged few. In
(13:19):
developing countries where most of the demand for these products
is currently coming from. Whereas planned obsolescence was introduced as
a means of solving the Great Depression, it looks like
hardware as a service is being introduced to prevent another
depression from occurring by ensuring consumption continues to increase even
as the demographic decline continues. Now, don't get me wrong,
(13:42):
hardware as a service is unlikely to be forced upon
US consumers. As we've recently seen with other products, Applying
too much force tends to result in an equal or
greater amount of pushback, because hey, people know something is
up when they don't have a choice in the matter. Instead,
the ability to own anything will likely become ever more
difficult as time goes on, and I suspect they'll start
(14:04):
with the things that tend to be the most expensive
purchases for the average person. At the top of this list,
we have housing, whose costs have been going through the
roof in most countries. As I mentioned in our recent
video about the housing market, the rising costs in this
corner of the economy will eventually cause the population to
push politicians to do something, as we've seen in countries
(14:27):
like Germany. One of the outcomes could be that the
government starts nationalizing housing, are taking it away from landlords
in the name of the greater good. And while these
policies will be directed towards the big fish at first,
the small fish will come next, just like with taxation. Alternatively,
if the housing market collapses, we could see asset managers
(14:49):
like black Stones swoop in and acquire as many properties
as possible with the freshly printed money they received from
their respective central banks basically your rent from the government
or from Wall Street. The next item on the list
is automobiles of all kinds, and this is where lots
of work is already being done by car sharing companies
like car to Share, shared electric scooter companies like Lime,
(15:12):
and shared bicycle companies like mobike. You can bet your
bottom dollar that these entities are extracting as much data
as they can in preparation for hardware as a service
models for similar automobiles, and the fact that many of
these companies continue to receive large investments despite being barely
profitable is evidence to this effect. On that note, hardware
(15:35):
as a service in automobiles is likely part of why
there's such a huge push for electric vehicles. That's because
it's easy to break the rules of a sharing economy
when the vehicle is powered by petrol and hardware, but
it's much harder to break the rules when the vehicle
is powered by electricity and software. Moreover, there's a limit
to how many electric cars can be made because there
(15:56):
doesn't seem to be enough lithium on the planet to
replace existing cars with electric cars. According to the World
Economic Forum's own research, this effectively guarantees that electric cars
will need to be shared now. Phones and computers will
probably be the third class of products to get sucked
into the hardware as a service scheme, but I suspect
(16:17):
it will take quite some time for the average person
to be okay with this. That's because phones and computers
are frequently listed as a person's most valuable possessions, primarily
because it's something that you can truly shape according to
your liking. These devices also contain lots of sensitive personal
data that you'd rather keep to yourself and not share
(16:37):
with anyone. Keeping track of phones and computers would also
be very difficult without a digital i D, which is
also a prerequisite for the rollout of Central Bank Digital
currencies and Internet censorship, which the powers that be have
explicitly stated they want to see. The worst part of
all this is that there are increasing numbers of people
(16:59):
who are on eyedronically on board with this hardware as
a service idea. This is simply because an increasing number
of people can't afford a home, a car, or even
a nice computer or phone. I'll never forget the reaction
I got when I told a few friends about how
the World Economic Forum says you'll own nothing and be happy.
They just sighed and said, well, I don't own anything anyway,
(17:20):
so at least I'll be happy. If this is how
you feel, take a second to consider that there is
something very valuable that you own, and that is yourself.
Then consider that some of the things that you do
own are ultimately an extension of yourself. They allow you
to be you. They allow you to exercise the ownership
of yourself in the world. This is fundamentally why having
(17:43):
a place to call home, having a way to move around,
and having the ability to communicate and express yourself are
objectively important and universally sought. After the fact that you
don't have a home, a car, or even a nice
computer or phone today doesn't mean that you won't have
these things tomorrow. So long as the path to ownership
of these and other things exists, you can find your
(18:06):
way to them if you play your cards right, even
if the system is rigged against you. Rest assured that
you will never be happy in a world where the
path to ownership to literally anything except your skin and
bones has been blocked, because you will never be able
to truly be yourself, never mind that you might even
lose the ownership of yourself because of a digital I
(18:27):
D in such a world. So what's the solution then, Well,
by now it should be clear the financial system we
have now is not working, and some would say it
hasn't been working for decades, if not longer, because it's
not just hardware as a service. Planned obsolescence was proposed
almost one hundred years ago. As almost all of you
will know, cryptocurrency was built to replace this broken financial system,
(18:51):
and though cryptocurrency still has a very long way to go,
it has already fixed one of the most important parts
of finance, and that's the ability to truly own your assets.
Now you might think this is nothing new, but it
really is. The money in your bank can be seized,
and any physical property you have can be confiscated. Even
your house can be taken from you if you don't
(19:12):
pay your taxes, and in some countries the government can
take your property at will using eminent domain. I'm not kidding.
Look it up now. You might think that this is fine,
but it's really not. These are the sorts of legal
levers that governments and corporations are slowly starting to pull
to take control of everything you own. Once you realize this,
(19:33):
it makes it easy to understand why micro Strategy CEO
Michael Sailor is so obsessed with Bitcoin. BTC can't be
seized because it's not technically owned by a third party.
It can't be confiscated because it's not physical, and it
can't be taken by the government through some obscure law
because the only law in crypto is immutable computer code.
(19:55):
The harsh reality is that almost every other cryptocurrency does
not come with same ownership guarantees, be due to their
centralization or consensus mechanisms. This makes BTC the best hedge
against a world where you will own nothing, because it
guarantees that you will own something. When you look around
and realize that everyone owns nothing. Even now, there's lots
(20:19):
to be happy about. When you've got some SATs to
your name, just make sure that you're holding those SATs
in your own personal crypto wallet or else. Everything I
just said about BTC will be irrelevant. You can find
out about the best crypto wallets using the link in
the description, and I would consider memorizing your seed phrase
once you make one. It could save you someday. As
(20:46):
ethereums transition to proof of steake approaches, crypto traders and
investors are turning to Ethereum competitors to protect their portfolios
in case the market's higher expectations are not met. In
recent weeks, cardanos Aida has emerged as an ideal hedge
against something going wrong with the merge, and Cardarno's own
upcoming upgrade could supercharge AIDA's price action. So today I'm
(21:10):
going to give you a quick breakdown of Cardaro, bring
you up to speed on some of the project's most
important updates, and tell you where Aida could be headed
in the near term. If you're unfamiliar with Cardano, here's
what you need to know. Cardaro was founded by Ethereum
co founder Charles Hoskinson. In it was built by Input
Output Hong Kong or i O h K and IMRGO,
(21:34):
both of which are based in Singapore but have offices
and subsidiaries around the world. Cardano's ongoing development is coordinated
by the Cardarno Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit which is also
the legal owner of the Cardaro brand. The More You
Know Cardano raised nearly eighty million dollars across various I
(21:54):
c O s sixteen and twenty seventeen. Publicly available in
for Nation suggests the entities behind Cardaro have not raised
any additional funding since that time. The car Darno main
net went live in twenty seventeen, and though the project
is still very much in development compared to its peers,
(22:14):
most of its key features and functionalities have already been implemented.
Under the hood, the car Darno blockchain uses a novel
proof of state consensus mechanism called aa Boris, which allows
it to process around five hundred transactions per second. Note
that this TPS figure does not apply to smart contract transactions,
(22:35):
which can be as slow as just a few transactions
per second depending on network demand. That said, Cardano's smart
contract TPS should increase significantly after the vassal hard fork,
which I'll come back to later. Don't you worry now.
Although the Cardarno blockchain currently isn't all that fast, it
(22:56):
is one of the most secure and decentralized blockchains, and
that's because it has roughly thirty two hundred staking pools.
The secret source to Cardano's decentralization is its novel K parameter,
which decreases staking rewards when too much AIDA is being
staked in a single pool. This incentivizes steak pool operators
(23:17):
to create additional staking pools, which further decentralizes the Cardarno blockchain.
If that didn't make it clear enough, ADA is used
for staking on Cardarno. It's also used to pay for
transaction fees and to participate in community governance via Project Catalyst.
Note though, that any Cardarno native asset can be used
(23:40):
to pay for transaction fees thanks to Cardaro's novel babel
fees mechanism. AIDA staking rewards are currently around four point
six percent per year according to the official Cardarno calculator.
There is no minimum stake, no lock up or unlocked period,
or any slashing risks associated with staking AIDA. It should
(24:00):
come as no surprise then, that around seventy percent of
all Ada in circulation is being staked now. In contrast
to most cryptocurrencies, Ada had a fairly equitable initial distribution,
with only around fifteen percent of its initial supply of
roughly twenty six billion being allocated to the three entities
(24:21):
behind Cardaro. Like Bitcoin's BTC, Cardarno's Ada has a maximum supply,
and in Ada's case, this supply is forty five billion. Again,
like BTC, it's going to take quite a bit of
time for Ada to hit its maximum supply, with some
estimates suggesting it could take another thirty years, if not more.
(24:44):
The Cardaro blockchain currently has seventy three decentralized applications according
to Cardarno crowd. Twelve of these are defied protocols, which
collectively hold around ninety million dollars in total value locked
according to defy Lama. Note that there are over one
thousand projects building on Cardaro as of June this year.
(25:07):
Cardano's expanding ecosystem can be accessed using various browser extension
while it's the most popular being the name e wallet,
which is seen over two hundred thousand downloads on Chrome
based browsers Note that there are over three point five
million unique Cardaro wallet addresses in total. Now, if you
want to learn more about Cardarno's ecosystem, you can check
(25:28):
out our video about the top Cardaro projects using the
link in the description. Now it's only been about four
months since our last covered Cardaro, but a lot has
happened since then. In May, Ada was one of the
fastest to recover after the crypto market crash resulting from
terrorist collapse. This might have something to do with the
(25:49):
fact that it was not nearly as exposed to terror's
U s T stable coin, which had found its way
into just about every major DeFi protocol in crypto. In
early June, Immergo and the Cardano Foundation released a decentralized
application back end for the Cardaro developer community, making it
easier for them to build new depths. I O h
(26:11):
K also announced that Dish Network would be leveraging its
Atala prism decentralized ID solution for the television and satellite
company's loyalty coin program. Note that Atala Prism is the
same decentralized ID solution being leveraged by the Ethiopian government
for educational credentials. I O h K even announced the
(26:33):
upcoming release of its own light wallet, dubbed Lace, which
will act as a one stop shop for the entire
Cardarno ecosystem. This includes integrated staking governance, and even direct
access to Cardaro's decentralized applications. At the end of June,
io h K announced that Cardano's Vassal hard fork would
(26:54):
be delayed by a month due to the discovery of bugs,
but noted that the Vassal test new would be coming soon.
Charles Hoskinson also testified in front of US politicians in
a hearing about crypto regulations, and we actually summarize that
hearing in another video and that will be down in
the description. In early July, the Vassal test net went live,
(27:17):
resulting in lots of ADA accumulation as investors awaited the
main net hard fork that was expected to occur a
few weeks later. Unfortunately, the Vassal main net hard fork
was delayed again at the end of July, and by
this point ADA holders were starting to become apathetic, as
per the lack of views on Cardano content related to
(27:39):
the delay. What's even more unfortunate is that this news
seems to have overshadowed an important update from I O
h K, and that's that the software company is working
on creating a quote family of side chains for Cardano,
including one that supports Ethereum smart contracts via the Ethereum
Virtual Machine. Now this is important because Cardano has had
(28:03):
a harder time attracting developers and liquidity due to its
use of Haskell, a coding language that is extremely secure,
yet not nearly as common as Solidity or Rust and
apparently very difficult to develop decentralized applications with, or so
I've read. As such, the release of one or more
(28:24):
Ethereum compatible side chains on Cardano could attract lots of
developers and liquidity to Cardano's ecosystem, all while making Cardano
more interoperable with Ethereum and other e v M chains.
Seriously keep your eyes peeled for this now. In August,
crypto friendly bank Signum announced that it would be offering
(28:46):
ada staking to its clients, underscoring the institutional interest in Cardano.
Note that Signum has over one thousand institutional clients. Charles
also revealed that the Vassel hard fork would likely occur
in September, and just a few days ago we got
confirmation that Vassal will officially occur on Thursday, the twenty
(29:07):
two of September, roughly one week after the Ethereum merge
is expected to be complete. As I mentioned earlier, the
vassal hard forks should significantly improve Cardano's smart contract scalability,
and if this improvement can be felt by users when
interacting with Cardano's depths, it's more than likely that Ada
(29:28):
will explode in a good way. As a cherry on top.
Robin Hood also recently listed Aida. Given that robin hood
has twenty three million users, this could add lots of
fuel to AIDA's rocket ship, especially if the Wall Street
Bets subreddit decides it's time to send Aida to the moon. However,
(29:49):
despite all of Cardano's amazing announcements, partnerships, and developments, Aida
is down more than fifty since our last covered the
project back in May, and it's not looking very pretty
on the long term price chart. This is for a
few reasons. First and foremost, Cardano is a large cap
aalk coin, and that means AIDA's price action is highly
(30:10):
correlated with BTCS case and point btcs year to date
price action looks almost exactly the same as aiders coin
market caps. Historical data also suggests that AIDA's circulating supply
has increased by around four hundred and fifty millions since May. Now,
if we assume an average price of fifty cents per
(30:31):
Ada during that time, it translates to around one hundred
and seventy five million dollars of potential cell pressure. Now,
this isn't actually all that much cell pressure for a
large capal coin, and it's an amount of cell pressure
that should be easy to absorb even in a crypto
bear market. Logically, then this means that the issue is
(30:52):
on the demand side. Although the number of native assets
on Cardano has increased by more than thirty percent since May,
almost every other demand metric has been moving sideways. For starters,
there's Cardarno's n f T trading volume, which fell off
a cliff in June, according to open c n f T,
a website for tracking Cardarno n f T s now.
(31:15):
This is significant because most of the native assets on
Cardano are apparently n f T s, suggesting that most
of the thirty percent gain occurred in June. What's more,
is the number of downloads for the Nami wallet browser
extension is the same as it was during my last
update about the project. The number of Cardarno staking pools
(31:38):
also seems to be the same and has even declined.
According to some Cardarno blockchain explorers. The total value locked
in Cardaro's DeFi applications has also dropped by almost seventy percent,
while AIDA's price only fell by around for This suggests
that the decline in tv L was caused by ADA
(31:58):
being removed from D five protocols, not just the decline
in aiders price. To be fair, this discrepancy can be
explained by the greater losses experienced by the Cardarno native
assets in these DeFi protocols, but this is arguably offset
by the increase in the number of de FI protocols.
(32:19):
What's harder to explain away, however, is that the total
number of depps deployed on Cardano has increased by one
since May, at least according to Cardarno crowd This could
again be because the website is not up to date,
but this seems to be the go to site for cardarodaps,
so I'm assuming it probably is up to date now.
(32:40):
The scariest demand side statistic I came across is the
number of unique wallet addresses on Cardano, which has only
increased by around two hundred and fifty thousand since May
according to Ada stat Note that this is a fraction
of how quickly new Cardarno wallet addresses were being created
in the past. The worst part is that Ada doesn't
(33:01):
seem to have a very high baseline level of demand,
as Cardano's debts only have around fifty thousand monthly users
in total according to sexplorer dot io. Now, this is
nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of monthly users
individual adapts on B and B, wax Sealana, Ethereum, polygon flow,
(33:22):
rown in iOS, and other blockchains continue to see according
to dap Radar, which apparently doesn't track Cardarno dabs. Now,
even with these headwinds, Ada could rally as high as
a dollar as a result of ethereums merge and Cardano's
own vassal hard fork. This would work out to a
(33:43):
two x move in the short to medium term, which
is a realistic expectation, especially since AIDA's price action in
fiat and terms supports this target. There are additional macro
factors coming later this month that could take Ada and
other cryptocurrencies even higher or much lower, and you can
check out my video on coin Bureau clips about those
(34:05):
macro factors using the link in the description. Now, when
it comes to Ada's long term potential, this all depends
on Cardano's upcoming milestones, which can be found in the
official Cardaro roadmap, updates from Cardano's developers and interviews A M. A. S.
And updates with Charles Hoskinson himself. As many of you
(34:26):
will know, the Cardano roadmap consists of five stages called eras.
Cardano is currently in the Basho era, which focuses on scaling,
and it's not entirely clear when the Basho era will end.
You would think that it ends with the Vassal hard fork,
but apparently this is not the case. In a June
(34:46):
video detailing the history of Cardano, the narrator explains that
three and four will focus on scaling, which suggests Basho
will not end until sometime in Note that this is
much later than the end of twenty two estimate that
was given by Cardaro developers last December. I'll also quickly
(35:09):
note that another highly anticipated Cardanno scaling solution, called Hydra,
is expected to be complete sometime next year, and you
can learn more about Hydra by watching our previous Cardano
update using the link in the description. Now, as for Voltaire,
Cardano has technically entered this era as well, and Charles
(35:29):
mentioned in a June video about Cardano's roadmap and governance
that Project Catalyst will soon be linked more closely to
the Cardarno blockchain in preparation for protocol level governance of
Cardaro itself. The details about the first stages of Cardano's
(35:51):
protocol governance should be announced by the end of this month,
and if I understand correctly, the primary focus will be
the establishment of a so called member US and merit
based organization which will table proposals with AIDA holders as
the voters. Charles mentioned in another June video that Cardano
is currently focused on making things quote open source in
(36:13):
the context of governments, meaning that the AIDA community will
play a more active role in the direction of the project. Obviously,
Cardano's code is already open source. In a July a
m A, Charles revealed that there's a chance Cardaro will
partner with algorand after I O h K interim director
of Architecture John Woods left the company to join the
(36:35):
Algorand Foundation as chief technology Officer. Funnily enough, Charles also
seemed to imply that Cardaro is not open to partnering
with Salana and made an amusing tongue in cheek joke
about Salana's constant outages. I'll leave a link to that
A M A in the description so you can hear
it for yourself now. In a more recent video about
(36:56):
the Vassal hard fork, Charles said that the twenty and
of September will be quote just another day, and said
that he's happy Cardano has remained committed to the quality
and security of its transactions. Oddly enough, he didn't say
much about the scalability improvements Vassal will bring, and this
echoes something one of Cardano's core developers said during a
(37:20):
mid month developer update in June, specifically that quote the
effects of the Vassal hard fork will not be instant.
He also made it sound like it will be up
to the DAPT developers to implement the scalability improvements of Vassal.
This brings me to the potential concerns I have about Cardano,
(37:40):
and my first is, of course, the upcoming Vassal hard fork.
This is simply because I and many other AIDA holders
have PTSD from what happened after the last highly anticipated
Cardano hard fork last September that introduced smart contracts. In short,
what happened was that expectation were extremely high. Everyone was
(38:03):
expecting there to be dozens, if not hundreds, of depts
deploying on Cardarno. Instead, concurrency challenges delayed the rollout of
Cardarno's debts and continue to cause user experience issues to
this day. All the aider holders who decided to hoddle
through the Autumn one dip were probably disappointed when Cardarno
(38:25):
DAPs started to deploy earlier this year, notably Sunday Swap,
which went live in January. Now, as someone who dabbles
with Cardaro DAPs, I can tell you that the user
experience is not up to standard. This is why there
is so much riding on the Vassal hard fork. Many
AIDA holders, including myself, are hoping, literally praying, that it
(38:48):
will fix or at least improve the user experience on
Cardarno's debts. This puts us in the same position that
we were before last September's hard fork, and that is
discon certain this might actually be why the cardar No
team has been wary of promising too much with Vassal.
They don't want the community to be as hyped up
(39:09):
as it was with the Alonso hard fork, especially since
Vassal is the most significant hard fork for Cardaro to date,
meaning there could be technical issues. This ties into my
second potential concern, and that's regulation. Now, maybe it's just me,
but the Cardaro team seems to have been hyper focused
(39:29):
on governance over the last few months. This could just
be the team moving their focus from scalability to governance,
but the regulatory climate suggests otherwise. If you've watched any
of our recent videos about the SEC, you'll know it
believes that basically every cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin's BTC is a
(39:50):
security like a stock in a company, and must therefore
be regulated a k a. Destroyed, and this regulatory scrutiny
even seems to apply to etherory eth now. Polka dot
founder Gavin Wood, who's also an ethereum co founder, seems
to have been the first to realize that the SEC
was coming and has been hyper focused on decentralizing Polka
(40:11):
Dot ever since. I suspect Cardano is in a similar situation,
hence the sudden acceleration in governance development. The difference is
that Charles Hoskinson has chosen to go on the offensive
by flying to Washington, d C. To meet with politicians
head on and convince them to pass crypto regulations that
will benefit not just Cardano but all cryptocurrencies. The question
(40:37):
is whether Charles and other crypto lobbyists can convince lawmakers
before a crackdown occurs, and I'm honestly not so sure. Now.
The SEC has a habit of handing out enforcement actions
at the end of its fiscal year, which is this month,
and you can bet that there are many crypto projects
(40:57):
on its hit list. This doesn't me that Ada is
on that list, but as a large crypto project, it's
definitely within the line of fire. And recall that e
Toro delisted Ada for US users late last year, citing
unspecified regulatory concerns. While it's true that they may have
just been triggered happy, one can only assume they consulted
(41:20):
their legal advisors. This means that Cardano will have to
move quickly to decentralize its governance as much as possible,
and I reckon this is important to do regardless of
the regulatory implications. Luckily decentralization is something Cardano does best
in some then it's going to be a very interesting
(41:41):
September for Ada. If the Vassal hard work manages to
meet or even exceed the expectations of ADA holders, we
could see it outperform every other large cap cryptocurrency by
percentage terms and then some. If Vassal fails to meet
the expectations of ADA holder, however they or rather we
(42:02):
could be waiting for another year or two before the
scalability improvements we're waiting for come around now. I for one,
am happy to hoddle my aidap, but I really rather
not see it continue to crash. So let's hope Vassal
is a success. Thank you so much for listening to
the coin Bureau podcast. If you'd like to learn more
(42:24):
about cryptocurrency, you can visit our YouTube channel at YouTube
dot com forward slash coin Bureau. You can also go
to coin bureau dot com for loads more information about
all things crypto. You can follow me on Twitter at
at coin bureau or one word, and I'm also active
on TikTok and Instagram too.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode from the
midweek edition of the coin Bureau podcast. Every week, I
pick out two of my favorite videos from coin Bureau's
YouTube channel to present to you in podcast form. The
audio you're about to hear is from those videos I've
chosen this week. Many of you have been in touch
to ask whether it's possible to listen to our videos
(00:20):
in podcast format, and so your wish is my command.
This week, I've selected our videos on the World Economic
Forum's chilling plans for our future and our recent update
on Cardano. Now, you may already be familiar with the
phrase you'll own nothing and be happy, But if you're not,
it's something that's been un ironically spouted by the folks
(00:41):
over at the World Economic Forum or WHEF, one of
a number of unelected, unaccountable, and unfeasibly powerful multinational organizations
that shape much of our lives without our knowledge. Many
people seem to imagine that attributing this phrase to the
folks at the WEF is all part of some conspiracy theory,
but it really isn't. This is what they actually believe
(01:03):
the future should look like, and steps are already being
taken to phase out individual ownership of a growing number
of products. In this dive into what a future of
owning nothing might look like, I take a look at
the surprisingly old idea of planned obsolescence and how it's
being used to guide us towards a subscription based future.
(01:23):
Companies across the world are desperate to attract new consumers
and to keep them constantly buying new products. To them,
the idea that people may try and prolong the life
of their devices and products by having them repaired presents
a serious threat to future profits. They're also worried that
demographic trends means fewer consumers overall. Their solution to this
(01:45):
problem means we could one day find ourselves living in
a world where actual ownership of goods, from phones, to
cars to even our homes becomes an outdated concept. It's
a scary thought, though, Fortunately, there are ways to push
back against the West's vision of our future. Keep listening
to find out. Then. In the second part of today's episode,
(02:05):
you'll hear our latest update on Cardarno, one of the
biggest crypto projects out there and one vying for ethereums
crown as the leading Layer one blockchain. All eyes have
been on Ethereum recently as the merge approaches, but Cardaro
also has an important and much delayed upgrade in the works,
now scheduled to happen not long after the merge. The
(02:29):
Vassal hard fork is a big moment for Cardano, and
many aida holders will be waiting anxiously to see whether
it's a success. Stay tuned to get a full low down.
I hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and
I'll be back talking crypto with Mike very soon, so
be sure to stay tuned, and if you want even
more content from coin Bureau, be sure to subscribe to
(02:51):
our YouTube channel and visit us on social media too.
(03:15):
You will own nothing and be happy. This infamous prediction
from the World Economic Forum is recognized by almost everyone
these days, yet there are few who believe it could
ever come to pass. Well, what if I told you
that our ownership of things is quickly disappearing and that
many of us are unknowingly embracing this new normal. Today,
(03:37):
I'm going to tell you about a disturbing trend that's
finding its way into every corner of the economy. Where
this trend came from and why cryptocurrency could be the
only defense. How often do you upgrade or change your phone?
Statistically speaking, your answer will be somewhere in the range
of two to three years. This is consistent with the
(03:59):
lifespan of the average phone battery, which tends to give
out after a couple of years of use, even if
you're taking care of your phone's battery, namely not letting
it drop below or go above the more you know now.
In theory, the solution is simple, just install a new
battery when the current one gives out and enjoy your
phone for another two to three years until you need
(04:21):
to replace the battery again, and so on and so on.
In practice, however, opening your phone and switching the battery
is generally not easy to do and can damage the phone.
This assumes you can even get your hands on a
replacement battery to begin with, which isn't guaranteed. In the
case of newer iPhone models, the phone will actually detect
(04:42):
when you've replaced the battery and will give you all
manner of warning messages which push you to go to
the Apple Store for an extensive repair that could cost
as much as a brand new phone. Now. Critics of
this setup have accurately observed that the inability to independently open,
modern fire, or repair a device that you own means
(05:02):
that you don't actually own it, because ownership literally means
the ability to do all of the above and more.
These and other issues have given rise to a global
movement called right to repair, which has managed to pressure
Apple and other tech giants into making repairs more accessible,
albeit to a limited degree due to the lobbying power
(05:24):
these corporations wield. The right to repair also doesn't always
fix the underlying ownership issue, and this is something that's
been pointed out on many occasions by Louie Rossman, a
popular YouTuber and computer repair shop owner who has gone
head to head with anti repair corporate lobbyists. Now, this
video was partially inspired by Louie's content, and I strongly
(05:47):
suggest checking out his channel if you're interested in the
dystopian direction that technology seems to be heading and want
to know how some folks are fighting back on the
policy front. I'll leave a link to his channel in
the description. Now, as to why the right to repair
doesn't always fix the underlying ownership issue, look no further
(06:07):
than the phenomenon of manufacturers slowing down phones to force
you to buy a new one. Any Android users in
the crowd will know that Samsung was fined for doing
exactly that in eighteen. As is often the case with
big tech companies, Samsung was issued a fine that amounted
to a slap on the wrist compared to the profits
(06:28):
it probably made from artificially slowing down phones, something which
the company is allegedly still doing to this day. This
level of control negates any aspect of ownership, and let's
just hope Salana doesn't do this to its upcoming cryptophones.
More about that in the description Anyway, I digress. Now
(06:49):
it's not just phones either. The practice of forcing people
to upgrade through some nefarious means has found its way
into everything from household appliances to hospital equipment. What's crazy
is that this practice has been around for almost a
hundred years, and it even has a name, planned obsolescence.
(07:10):
Although planned obsolescence has its origins in the early American
bicycle and automobile industries, the term was coined by an
American real estate broker named Bernard London in a paper
titled quote Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence, which he
published in nineteen thirty two. In the paper, Bernard said
that the Great Depression made no sense because quote factories,
(07:33):
warehouses and fields are still intact and are ready to
produce in unlimited quantities, but the urge to go ahead
has been paralyzed by a decline in buying power and
by extension, a decline in demand. Given this situation, Bernard
proposed the following solution quote. I would have the government
assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and
(07:55):
machines to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture when
they are first created, and they would be sold and
used within the term of their existence, definitely known by
the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things
would be legally dead and would be controlled by the
duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment.
(08:17):
In other words, everything produced in the economy would be
artificially made obsolete by the government at a certain date
to cause the population to consume more so that the
economy recovers, while simultaneously providing ample employment, further fostering economic growth. Now,
if you watched our video about how to prepare for
the crypto bear market, you'll know that it was the
(08:38):
Second World War that arguably ended the Great Depression, and
Bernard's problematic idea of planned obsolescence never really caught on
as a result. This is primarily because the post war
period was one of incredible prosperity, particularly for the United States,
as it managed to reap much of the rewards of
victory while incurring little in the way of losses compared
(08:59):
with its ally. The US dollar had also just become
the world's reserve currency. More importantly, the populations of countries
like the United States and Canada exploded after the Second
World War, creating the army of well off old folks
many of us now referred to as boomers. This is
important because the rapid increase in population meant there was
(09:19):
a rapid increase in consumption, and that meant that there
was no need for planned obsolescence business practices. Companies could
comfortably sell high quality hardware that would last for decades
because they knew there would always be another wave of
buyers coming next year as more baby boomers became adult boomers.
This seems to have been the case until the nineteen seventies,
(09:41):
when it became clear that baby boomers weren't having nearly
the same number of children as their forebears. It appears
that many Western countries tried to fill this future demographic
gap by opening their doors to immigration, and this seems
to have worked for a while. By the early two thousands, however,
it became clear that immigration the low wasn't enough to
fill the future demographic gap, which of course continued to
(10:04):
grow as companies needed ever more future consumption to continue
their future expansion, all the while native birth rates continued
to decline. This seems to be the period when Bernard's
idea of planned obsolescence started to become a reality. Companies
were effectively forced into selling low quality products that would
require a repurchase every few years to continue consumption trends
(10:28):
in the absence of a growing population. Now I know
what you're thinking, guy, this is all very interesting. But
what does this have to do with me owning nothing
and being happy? Well, I'm glad you asked, hypothetical impatient viewer.
Any iOS users in the crowd might recall that Bloomberg
reported that Apple will be rolling out a subscription service
(10:49):
for iPhones later this year or early next year. To
be clear, this upcoming subscription service is not at all
like Apple's existing subscription services. That's because it applies to hardware,
not software. The subscription service will be for the physical
phone itself. As Louis Rossman pointed out in his video
(11:10):
reaction to the news, a service is when someone or
something does something for you. A phone is not a service.
It is a product, and it should be entirely yours
from the moment you purchase it. Louis also highlighted the
fact that many Wall Street investors are pushing for publicly
traded companies to adopt this so called hardware as a
(11:31):
service business model because it will make them trade at
higher valuations regardless of their actual earnings, something that's mentioned
in the Bloomberg article. Trading at higher valuations regardless of
actual earnings sounds eerily similar to the E s G
investment trend, which effectively consists of asset managers moving their
money into companies that comply with their ever changing criteria,
(11:54):
causing their stocks to pump even though no actual profits
are being made. While I couldn't find any concrete evidence
that E s G investors are behind this accelerating trend
towards hardware as a service, in various sectors. It wouldn't
be surprising, given that the trend is inherently e s
G friendly. Hardware as a service satisfies environmental criteria because
(12:16):
the number of devices in circulation can be reduced, the
devices in circulation can be reused, and any old devices
can be easily recycled, as you'll likely need to give
back your old device to get a newer version. Hardware
as a service also satisfies social criteria because everyone will
have subscription services for the same devices. There will be
(12:37):
no phone with a better camera or a bigger memory,
nor a faster or slower, or bigger or smaller car,
and that means everyone will be truly equal. Hardware as
a service satisfies governance criteria because it will put the
company producing the product in total control of its creation, use,
and destruction. Anyways, more about e s G in the
(12:58):
description now. Unlike most other e s G related policies,
hardware as a service could actually result in actual profits
because people will be paying subscription services for just about
everything they own until they die. Notably, the subscription costs
could be made low enough so that these products are
available to more people, not just the privileged few. In
(13:19):
developing countries where most of the demand for these products
is currently coming from. Whereas planned obsolescence was introduced as
a means of solving the Great Depression, it looks like
hardware as a service is being introduced to prevent another
depression from occurring by ensuring consumption continues to increase even
as the demographic decline continues. Now, don't get me wrong,
(13:42):
hardware as a service is unlikely to be forced upon
US consumers. As we've recently seen with other products, Applying
too much force tends to result in an equal or
greater amount of pushback, because hey, people know something is
up when they don't have a choice in the matter. Instead,
the ability to own anything will likely become ever more
difficult as time goes on, and I suspect they'll start
(14:04):
with the things that tend to be the most expensive
purchases for the average person. At the top of this list,
we have housing, whose costs have been going through the
roof in most countries. As I mentioned in our recent
video about the housing market, the rising costs in this
corner of the economy will eventually cause the population to
push politicians to do something, as we've seen in countries
(14:27):
like Germany. One of the outcomes could be that the
government starts nationalizing housing, are taking it away from landlords
in the name of the greater good. And while these
policies will be directed towards the big fish at first,
the small fish will come next, just like with taxation. Alternatively,
if the housing market collapses, we could see asset managers
(14:49):
like black Stones swoop in and acquire as many properties
as possible with the freshly printed money they received from
their respective central banks basically your rent from the government
or from Wall Street. The next item on the list
is automobiles of all kinds, and this is where lots
of work is already being done by car sharing companies
like car to Share, shared electric scooter companies like Lime,
(15:12):
and shared bicycle companies like mobike. You can bet your
bottom dollar that these entities are extracting as much data
as they can in preparation for hardware as a service
models for similar automobiles, and the fact that many of
these companies continue to receive large investments despite being barely
profitable is evidence to this effect. On that note, hardware
(15:35):
as a service in automobiles is likely part of why
there's such a huge push for electric vehicles. That's because
it's easy to break the rules of a sharing economy
when the vehicle is powered by petrol and hardware, but
it's much harder to break the rules when the vehicle
is powered by electricity and software. Moreover, there's a limit
to how many electric cars can be made because there
(15:56):
doesn't seem to be enough lithium on the planet to
replace existing cars with electric cars. According to the World
Economic Forum's own research, this effectively guarantees that electric cars
will need to be shared now. Phones and computers will
probably be the third class of products to get sucked
into the hardware as a service scheme, but I suspect
(16:17):
it will take quite some time for the average person
to be okay with this. That's because phones and computers
are frequently listed as a person's most valuable possessions, primarily
because it's something that you can truly shape according to
your liking. These devices also contain lots of sensitive personal
data that you'd rather keep to yourself and not share
(16:37):
with anyone. Keeping track of phones and computers would also
be very difficult without a digital i D, which is
also a prerequisite for the rollout of Central Bank Digital
currencies and Internet censorship, which the powers that be have
explicitly stated they want to see. The worst part of
all this is that there are increasing numbers of people
(16:59):
who are on eyedronically on board with this hardware as
a service idea. This is simply because an increasing number
of people can't afford a home, a car, or even
a nice computer or phone. I'll never forget the reaction
I got when I told a few friends about how
the World Economic Forum says you'll own nothing and be happy.
They just sighed and said, well, I don't own anything anyway,
(17:20):
so at least I'll be happy. If this is how
you feel, take a second to consider that there is
something very valuable that you own, and that is yourself.
Then consider that some of the things that you do
own are ultimately an extension of yourself. They allow you
to be you. They allow you to exercise the ownership
of yourself in the world. This is fundamentally why having
(17:43):
a place to call home, having a way to move around,
and having the ability to communicate and express yourself are
objectively important and universally sought. After the fact that you
don't have a home, a car, or even a nice
computer or phone today doesn't mean that you won't have
these things tomorrow. So long as the path to ownership
of these and other things exists, you can find your
(18:06):
way to them if you play your cards right, even
if the system is rigged against you. Rest assured that
you will never be happy in a world where the
path to ownership to literally anything except your skin and
bones has been blocked, because you will never be able
to truly be yourself, never mind that you might even
lose the ownership of yourself because of a digital I
(18:27):
D in such a world. So what's the solution then, Well,
by now it should be clear the financial system we
have now is not working, and some would say it
hasn't been working for decades, if not longer, because it's
not just hardware as a service. Planned obsolescence was proposed
almost one hundred years ago. As almost all of you
will know, cryptocurrency was built to replace this broken financial system,
(18:51):
and though cryptocurrency still has a very long way to go,
it has already fixed one of the most important parts
of finance, and that's the ability to truly own your assets.
Now you might think this is nothing new, but it
really is. The money in your bank can be seized,
and any physical property you have can be confiscated. Even
your house can be taken from you if you don't
(19:12):
pay your taxes, and in some countries the government can
take your property at will using eminent domain. I'm not kidding.
Look it up now. You might think that this is fine,
but it's really not. These are the sorts of legal
levers that governments and corporations are slowly starting to pull
to take control of everything you own. Once you realize this,
(19:33):
it makes it easy to understand why micro Strategy CEO
Michael Sailor is so obsessed with Bitcoin. BTC can't be
seized because it's not technically owned by a third party.
It can't be confiscated because it's not physical, and it
can't be taken by the government through some obscure law
because the only law in crypto is immutable computer code.
(19:55):
The harsh reality is that almost every other cryptocurrency does
not come with same ownership guarantees, be due to their
centralization or consensus mechanisms. This makes BTC the best hedge
against a world where you will own nothing, because it
guarantees that you will own something. When you look around
and realize that everyone owns nothing. Even now, there's lots
(20:19):
to be happy about. When you've got some SATs to
your name, just make sure that you're holding those SATs
in your own personal crypto wallet or else. Everything I
just said about BTC will be irrelevant. You can find
out about the best crypto wallets using the link in
the description, and I would consider memorizing your seed phrase
once you make one. It could save you someday. As
(20:46):
ethereums transition to proof of steake approaches, crypto traders and
investors are turning to Ethereum competitors to protect their portfolios
in case the market's higher expectations are not met. In
recent weeks, cardanos Aida has emerged as an ideal hedge
against something going wrong with the merge, and Cardarno's own
upcoming upgrade could supercharge AIDA's price action. So today I'm
(21:10):
going to give you a quick breakdown of Cardaro, bring
you up to speed on some of the project's most
important updates, and tell you where Aida could be headed
in the near term. If you're unfamiliar with Cardano, here's
what you need to know. Cardaro was founded by Ethereum
co founder Charles Hoskinson. In it was built by Input
Output Hong Kong or i O h K and IMRGO,
(21:34):
both of which are based in Singapore but have offices
and subsidiaries around the world. Cardano's ongoing development is coordinated
by the Cardarno Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit which is also
the legal owner of the Cardaro brand. The More You
Know Cardano raised nearly eighty million dollars across various I
(21:54):
c O s sixteen and twenty seventeen. Publicly available in
for Nation suggests the entities behind Cardaro have not raised
any additional funding since that time. The car Darno main
net went live in twenty seventeen, and though the project
is still very much in development compared to its peers,
(22:14):
most of its key features and functionalities have already been implemented.
Under the hood, the car Darno blockchain uses a novel
proof of state consensus mechanism called aa Boris, which allows
it to process around five hundred transactions per second. Note
that this TPS figure does not apply to smart contract transactions,
(22:35):
which can be as slow as just a few transactions
per second depending on network demand. That said, Cardano's smart
contract TPS should increase significantly after the vassal hard fork,
which I'll come back to later. Don't you worry now.
Although the Cardarno blockchain currently isn't all that fast, it
(22:56):
is one of the most secure and decentralized blockchains, and
that's because it has roughly thirty two hundred staking pools.
The secret source to Cardano's decentralization is its novel K parameter,
which decreases staking rewards when too much AIDA is being
staked in a single pool. This incentivizes steak pool operators
(23:17):
to create additional staking pools, which further decentralizes the Cardarno blockchain.
If that didn't make it clear enough, ADA is used
for staking on Cardarno. It's also used to pay for
transaction fees and to participate in community governance via Project Catalyst.
Note though, that any Cardarno native asset can be used
(23:40):
to pay for transaction fees thanks to Cardaro's novel babel
fees mechanism. AIDA staking rewards are currently around four point
six percent per year according to the official Cardarno calculator.
There is no minimum stake, no lock up or unlocked period,
or any slashing risks associated with staking AIDA. It should
(24:00):
come as no surprise then, that around seventy percent of
all Ada in circulation is being staked now. In contrast
to most cryptocurrencies, Ada had a fairly equitable initial distribution,
with only around fifteen percent of its initial supply of
roughly twenty six billion being allocated to the three entities
(24:21):
behind Cardaro. Like Bitcoin's BTC, Cardarno's Ada has a maximum supply,
and in Ada's case, this supply is forty five billion. Again,
like BTC, it's going to take quite a bit of
time for Ada to hit its maximum supply, with some
estimates suggesting it could take another thirty years, if not more.
(24:44):
The Cardaro blockchain currently has seventy three decentralized applications according
to Cardarno crowd. Twelve of these are defied protocols, which
collectively hold around ninety million dollars in total value locked
according to defy Lama. Note that there are over one
thousand projects building on Cardaro as of June this year.
(25:07):
Cardano's expanding ecosystem can be accessed using various browser extension
while it's the most popular being the name e wallet,
which is seen over two hundred thousand downloads on Chrome
based browsers Note that there are over three point five
million unique Cardaro wallet addresses in total. Now, if you
want to learn more about Cardarno's ecosystem, you can check
(25:28):
out our video about the top Cardaro projects using the
link in the description. Now it's only been about four
months since our last covered Cardaro, but a lot has
happened since then. In May, Ada was one of the
fastest to recover after the crypto market crash resulting from
terrorist collapse. This might have something to do with the
(25:49):
fact that it was not nearly as exposed to terror's
U s T stable coin, which had found its way
into just about every major DeFi protocol in crypto. In
early June, Immergo and the Cardano Foundation released a decentralized
application back end for the Cardaro developer community, making it
easier for them to build new depths. I O h
(26:11):
K also announced that Dish Network would be leveraging its
Atala prism decentralized ID solution for the television and satellite
company's loyalty coin program. Note that Atala Prism is the
same decentralized ID solution being leveraged by the Ethiopian government
for educational credentials. I O h K even announced the
(26:33):
upcoming release of its own light wallet, dubbed Lace, which
will act as a one stop shop for the entire
Cardarno ecosystem. This includes integrated staking governance, and even direct
access to Cardaro's decentralized applications. At the end of June,
io h K announced that Cardano's Vassal hard fork would
(26:54):
be delayed by a month due to the discovery of bugs,
but noted that the Vassal test new would be coming soon.
Charles Hoskinson also testified in front of US politicians in
a hearing about crypto regulations, and we actually summarize that
hearing in another video and that will be down in
the description. In early July, the Vassal test net went live,
(27:17):
resulting in lots of ADA accumulation as investors awaited the
main net hard fork that was expected to occur a
few weeks later. Unfortunately, the Vassal main net hard fork
was delayed again at the end of July, and by
this point ADA holders were starting to become apathetic, as
per the lack of views on Cardano content related to
(27:39):
the delay. What's even more unfortunate is that this news
seems to have overshadowed an important update from I O
h K, and that's that the software company is working
on creating a quote family of side chains for Cardano,
including one that supports Ethereum smart contracts via the Ethereum
Virtual Machine. Now this is important because Cardano has had
(28:03):
a harder time attracting developers and liquidity due to its
use of Haskell, a coding language that is extremely secure,
yet not nearly as common as Solidity or Rust and
apparently very difficult to develop decentralized applications with, or so
I've read. As such, the release of one or more
(28:24):
Ethereum compatible side chains on Cardano could attract lots of
developers and liquidity to Cardano's ecosystem, all while making Cardano
more interoperable with Ethereum and other e v M chains.
Seriously keep your eyes peeled for this now. In August,
crypto friendly bank Signum announced that it would be offering
(28:46):
ada staking to its clients, underscoring the institutional interest in Cardano.
Note that Signum has over one thousand institutional clients. Charles
also revealed that the Vassel hard fork would likely occur
in September, and just a few days ago we got
confirmation that Vassal will officially occur on Thursday, the twenty
(29:07):
two of September, roughly one week after the Ethereum merge
is expected to be complete. As I mentioned earlier, the
vassal hard forks should significantly improve Cardano's smart contract scalability,
and if this improvement can be felt by users when
interacting with Cardano's depths, it's more than likely that Ada
(29:28):
will explode in a good way. As a cherry on top.
Robin Hood also recently listed Aida. Given that robin hood
has twenty three million users, this could add lots of
fuel to AIDA's rocket ship, especially if the Wall Street
Bets subreddit decides it's time to send Aida to the moon. However,
(29:49):
despite all of Cardano's amazing announcements, partnerships, and developments, Aida
is down more than fifty since our last covered the
project back in May, and it's not looking very pretty
on the long term price chart. This is for a
few reasons. First and foremost, Cardano is a large cap
aalk coin, and that means AIDA's price action is highly
(30:10):
correlated with BTCS case and point btcs year to date
price action looks almost exactly the same as aiders coin
market caps. Historical data also suggests that AIDA's circulating supply
has increased by around four hundred and fifty millions since May. Now,
if we assume an average price of fifty cents per
(30:31):
Ada during that time, it translates to around one hundred
and seventy five million dollars of potential cell pressure. Now,
this isn't actually all that much cell pressure for a
large capal coin, and it's an amount of cell pressure
that should be easy to absorb even in a crypto
bear market. Logically, then this means that the issue is
(30:52):
on the demand side. Although the number of native assets
on Cardano has increased by more than thirty percent since May,
almost every other demand metric has been moving sideways. For starters,
there's Cardarno's n f T trading volume, which fell off
a cliff in June, according to open c n f T,
a website for tracking Cardarno n f T s now.
(31:15):
This is significant because most of the native assets on
Cardano are apparently n f T s, suggesting that most
of the thirty percent gain occurred in June. What's more,
is the number of downloads for the Nami wallet browser
extension is the same as it was during my last
update about the project. The number of Cardarno staking pools
(31:38):
also seems to be the same and has even declined.
According to some Cardarno blockchain explorers. The total value locked
in Cardaro's DeFi applications has also dropped by almost seventy percent,
while AIDA's price only fell by around for This suggests
that the decline in tv L was caused by ADA
(31:58):
being removed from D five protocols, not just the decline
in aiders price. To be fair, this discrepancy can be
explained by the greater losses experienced by the Cardarno native
assets in these DeFi protocols, but this is arguably offset
by the increase in the number of de FI protocols.
(32:19):
What's harder to explain away, however, is that the total
number of depps deployed on Cardano has increased by one
since May, at least according to Cardarno crowd This could
again be because the website is not up to date,
but this seems to be the go to site for cardarodaps,
so I'm assuming it probably is up to date now.
(32:40):
The scariest demand side statistic I came across is the
number of unique wallet addresses on Cardano, which has only
increased by around two hundred and fifty thousand since May
according to Ada stat Note that this is a fraction
of how quickly new Cardarno wallet addresses were being created
in the past. The worst part is that Ada doesn't
(33:01):
seem to have a very high baseline level of demand,
as Cardano's debts only have around fifty thousand monthly users
in total according to sexplorer dot io. Now, this is
nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of monthly users
individual adapts on B and B, wax Sealana, Ethereum, polygon flow,
(33:22):
rown in iOS, and other blockchains continue to see according
to dap Radar, which apparently doesn't track Cardarno dabs. Now,
even with these headwinds, Ada could rally as high as
a dollar as a result of ethereums merge and Cardano's
own vassal hard fork. This would work out to a
(33:43):
two x move in the short to medium term, which
is a realistic expectation, especially since AIDA's price action in
fiat and terms supports this target. There are additional macro
factors coming later this month that could take Ada and
other cryptocurrencies even higher or much lower, and you can
check out my video on coin Bureau clips about those
(34:05):
macro factors using the link in the description. Now, when
it comes to Ada's long term potential, this all depends
on Cardano's upcoming milestones, which can be found in the
official Cardaro roadmap, updates from Cardano's developers and interviews A M. A. S.
And updates with Charles Hoskinson himself. As many of you
(34:26):
will know, the Cardano roadmap consists of five stages called eras.
Cardano is currently in the Basho era, which focuses on scaling,
and it's not entirely clear when the Basho era will end.
You would think that it ends with the Vassal hard fork,
but apparently this is not the case. In a June
(34:46):
video detailing the history of Cardano, the narrator explains that
three and four will focus on scaling, which suggests Basho
will not end until sometime in Note that this is
much later than the end of twenty two estimate that
was given by Cardaro developers last December. I'll also quickly
(35:09):
note that another highly anticipated Cardanno scaling solution, called Hydra,
is expected to be complete sometime next year, and you
can learn more about Hydra by watching our previous Cardano
update using the link in the description. Now, as for Voltaire,
Cardano has technically entered this era as well, and Charles
(35:29):
mentioned in a June video about Cardano's roadmap and governance
that Project Catalyst will soon be linked more closely to
the Cardarno blockchain in preparation for protocol level governance of
Cardaro itself. The details about the first stages of Cardano's
(35:51):
protocol governance should be announced by the end of this month,
and if I understand correctly, the primary focus will be
the establishment of a so called member US and merit
based organization which will table proposals with AIDA holders as
the voters. Charles mentioned in another June video that Cardano
is currently focused on making things quote open source in
(36:13):
the context of governments, meaning that the AIDA community will
play a more active role in the direction of the project. Obviously,
Cardano's code is already open source. In a July a
m A, Charles revealed that there's a chance Cardaro will
partner with algorand after I O h K interim director
of Architecture John Woods left the company to join the
(36:35):
Algorand Foundation as chief technology Officer. Funnily enough, Charles also
seemed to imply that Cardaro is not open to partnering
with Salana and made an amusing tongue in cheek joke
about Salana's constant outages. I'll leave a link to that
A M A in the description so you can hear
it for yourself now. In a more recent video about
(36:56):
the Vassal hard fork, Charles said that the twenty and
of September will be quote just another day, and said
that he's happy Cardano has remained committed to the quality
and security of its transactions. Oddly enough, he didn't say
much about the scalability improvements Vassal will bring, and this
echoes something one of Cardano's core developers said during a
(37:20):
mid month developer update in June, specifically that quote the
effects of the Vassal hard fork will not be instant.
He also made it sound like it will be up
to the DAPT developers to implement the scalability improvements of Vassal.
This brings me to the potential concerns I have about Cardano,
(37:40):
and my first is, of course, the upcoming Vassal hard fork.
This is simply because I and many other AIDA holders
have PTSD from what happened after the last highly anticipated
Cardano hard fork last September that introduced smart contracts. In short,
what happened was that expectation were extremely high. Everyone was
(38:03):
expecting there to be dozens, if not hundreds, of depts
deploying on Cardarno. Instead, concurrency challenges delayed the rollout of
Cardarno's debts and continue to cause user experience issues to
this day. All the aider holders who decided to hoddle
through the Autumn one dip were probably disappointed when Cardarno
(38:25):
DAPs started to deploy earlier this year, notably Sunday Swap,
which went live in January. Now, as someone who dabbles
with Cardaro DAPs, I can tell you that the user
experience is not up to standard. This is why there
is so much riding on the Vassal hard fork. Many
AIDA holders, including myself, are hoping, literally praying, that it
(38:48):
will fix or at least improve the user experience on
Cardarno's debts. This puts us in the same position that
we were before last September's hard fork, and that is
discon certain this might actually be why the cardar No
team has been wary of promising too much with Vassal.
They don't want the community to be as hyped up
(39:09):
as it was with the Alonso hard fork, especially since
Vassal is the most significant hard fork for Cardaro to date,
meaning there could be technical issues. This ties into my
second potential concern, and that's regulation. Now, maybe it's just me,
but the Cardaro team seems to have been hyper focused
(39:29):
on governance over the last few months. This could just
be the team moving their focus from scalability to governance,
but the regulatory climate suggests otherwise. If you've watched any
of our recent videos about the SEC, you'll know it
believes that basically every cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin's BTC is a
(39:50):
security like a stock in a company, and must therefore
be regulated a k a. Destroyed, and this regulatory scrutiny
even seems to apply to etherory eth now. Polka dot
founder Gavin Wood, who's also an ethereum co founder, seems
to have been the first to realize that the SEC
was coming and has been hyper focused on decentralizing Polka
(40:11):
Dot ever since. I suspect Cardano is in a similar situation,
hence the sudden acceleration in governance development. The difference is
that Charles Hoskinson has chosen to go on the offensive
by flying to Washington, d C. To meet with politicians
head on and convince them to pass crypto regulations that
will benefit not just Cardano but all cryptocurrencies. The question
(40:37):
is whether Charles and other crypto lobbyists can convince lawmakers
before a crackdown occurs, and I'm honestly not so sure. Now.
The SEC has a habit of handing out enforcement actions
at the end of its fiscal year, which is this month,
and you can bet that there are many crypto projects
(40:57):
on its hit list. This doesn't me that Ada is
on that list, but as a large crypto project, it's
definitely within the line of fire. And recall that e
Toro delisted Ada for US users late last year, citing
unspecified regulatory concerns. While it's true that they may have
just been triggered happy, one can only assume they consulted
(41:20):
their legal advisors. This means that Cardano will have to
move quickly to decentralize its governance as much as possible,
and I reckon this is important to do regardless of
the regulatory implications. Luckily decentralization is something Cardano does best
in some then it's going to be a very interesting
(41:41):
September for Ada. If the Vassal hard work manages to
meet or even exceed the expectations of ADA holders, we
could see it outperform every other large cap cryptocurrency by
percentage terms and then some. If Vassal fails to meet
the expectations of ADA holder, however they or rather we
(42:02):
could be waiting for another year or two before the
scalability improvements we're waiting for come around now. I for one,
am happy to hoddle my aidap, but I really rather
not see it continue to crash. So let's hope Vassal
is a success. Thank you so much for listening to
the coin Bureau podcast. If you'd like to learn more
(42:24):
about cryptocurrency, you can visit our YouTube channel at YouTube
dot com forward slash coin Bureau. You can also go
to coin bureau dot com for loads more information about
all things crypto. You can follow me on Twitter at
at coin bureau or one word, and I'm also active
on TikTok and Instagram too.
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