Yesterday, May the 5th 2019, the founder of the Cardano project, Charles Hoskinson, took to YouTube to address his community. During his 12 minute video he took the time to answer questions from community members.

The basis of the questions were along the lines of “what is delaying the Shelley update”, and “how many engineers are working on it”. The video also takes some time to attempt to calm the community’s fears regarding the newly announced Atala project. The video demonstrates Charles’ passion for the project as he addresses claims of the Cardano team’s commitment.

On Missing Cardano Deadlines

When addressing the issue of missed deadlines for the Cardano project, Charles was very blunt in his reasoning. He states, and rightly so, that the Cardano protocol is one which is based on research and development. And that this approach will often take more time than expected.

He further explains the fact that, as consumers, the general public only ever get to see the end result of years of delays and missed deadlines. Using the iPhone face scanner as an example, he states that, had users seen “early iterations, then [it would seem as if] there’s nothing but delays and missed schedules, and [missed] deadlines”.

The Ethereum co-founder then continues to explain that this is the nature of research based projects. Adding that it is the job of the researcher to put in the “best effort” they can, but that deadlines are not always realistic.

On Questions of Incompetence

When addressing concerns of the competence of his team of engineers Charles was quick to refute. He uses a great example of building within London to explain that, while researching, unforeseen hurdles can present themselves.

“There are many buildings in London…when people decided to build a skyscraper somewhere…when they started digging, they discovered corpses… They had to bring in people to study them and [assess] how old the [fossils and other buried items] were, where they’re from, what museum do we take them, etc.”

Another valid point which is made on this topic is the fact that, when you’re pioneering anything, be it tech, clothing or food, the unchartered nature of the project means there will always be delays. It is very rare for everything to fall into place on the first attempt.

More Than 50 Engineers, None of Whom Working on Atala

The topic of full time engineers present in Cardano was another issue addressed in the video. Members of the community had questioned the focus of the team, suggesting Cardano were sending engineers to work on Atala instead. This turns out to also be incorrect and the truth is that engineers are moving in the opposite direction.

“the flow of people is moving not in the Cardano to Atala direction, it’s actually the Atala to Cardano direction.”

Charles also goes on to state the two projects are “completely separate” and that there aren’t any developers from Cardano working on Atala.

On Crypto Adoption and Blockchain Uses

Through the final portion of his video post, Charles goes on to discuss the possible uses of blockchain technology, as a whole. He goes on to state that he believes there needs to be caution in some areas, questioning the motive of some approaches to implementation of the DLT system (Distributed Ledger Technology).

Rightly so, he specifically points to the industry of IoT (Internet of Things) devices, which take readings of devices millions of times per day. This, in turn, would bloat any DLT system with incomprehensible amounts of data and should be kept on a database.

When addressing the current cryptocurrency industry, Charles goes on to add that blockchain based products should not be trying to sell a token. He states that the key to adoption is by finding problems which people may have, and attempting to solve it.

“It makes a hell of a lot of sense to have a private strategy that works in tandem with an open system and you put these two things together. One brings users into the other system. Users who’ve never been in the cryptocurrency space. Users who have no preferences. And, users who are there because you solved a problem for them. And, now are using that system to solve other problems such as [fulfilling the need for services including] remittances, insurance, and microfinance.”

Love, peace and happiness.