Introduction:
I'm a football fan (Hand-egg for my Non-American readers). Every year, a series of posts called "Why Your Team Sucks" is released that widely and hilariously criticizes each team and its fanbase. It is one of my favorite annual reads and does a great job at making fun of everybody in a mean-spirited way.
The crypto community is in desperate need of some of self-reflection. Tribalism runs too deep, and its time we remove the veil and laugh at the furious mouth breathers angrily typing on their keyboards to fight off legitimate criticisms aimed towards their favorite cryptocurrencies.
The Why Your Coin Sucks series is not intended as FUD. It's actually intended to be a bit a satire, with a sprinkle of truth, combined with a mean-spirited assessment of each project and its surrounding communities. Think of it as a "Change My View" post written by an asshole.
Next Victim...Cardano (ADA)
If Bitcoin is a corporate sellout, and Monero is that creepy guy living in the apartment below you that you most certainly wouldn't let near your kids, Cardano is a smug, intelligent, and ambitious millennial with seven BRILLIANT business plans down the pipeline. Those business plans are bound to take off any day now, but until that day comes, they are just temporarily staying in their parent's basement.
The Cardano hype train has been running full steam ahead lately thanks to some significant price action with ADA.
There's no better time than now to derail things a bit.
Reader's Digest Version of Cardano's History
Charles Hoskinson, who was a co-founder of Ethereum, left the Ethereum foundation after a dispute over keeping the foundation non-profit. Development of the Cardano platform began in 2015, and the platform was launched in 2017. Cardano aims to be a direct competitor to Ethereum, by solving many of the problems paining the Ethereum blockchain (Scalability, Gas Fees).
From the Cardano Site itself:
Cardano is a groundbreaking proof-of-stake blockchain network, being developed into a decentralized application (DApp) development platform with a multi-asset LEDGER and verifiable smart contracts. Built with the rigor of high-assurance formal development methods, Cardano aims to achieve the scalability, interoperability, and sustainability needed for real-world applications. Cardano is designed to be the platform of choice for the large-scale, mission-critical DApps that will underpin the economy of the future.
Why Cardano Sucks
Before we dive into my potty mouthed nitpicks, we need to simplify and untangle all of the moving parts in the Cardano project, because there is a lot going on here. Cardano also likes to name everything after dead scientists, philosophers, and philosophical concepts because the developers are smarter than you and they aren't afraid to let you fucking know it.
Here is a quick run-down of relevant terms and the names of things the Cardano platform:
- Cardano is the name of the blockchain platform.
- ADA is the native cryptocurrency. (ADA and Cardano are often used interchangeably when referring to the crypto)
- The Cardano Foundation are the legal custodians of the Cardano brand, and control the direction of the project.
- Ouroboros is the proof-of-stake protocol (Which is how ADA is distributed)
- Daedalus is Cardano's official wallet
Here's a quick rundown of Cardano's roadmap:
- Bryon - Foundation (i.e build the shit)
- Shelley - Decentralization (i.e distribute ADA on the shit)
- Goguen - Smart Contracts (i.e build DApps on the shit) <- We are currently here, with a proposed March 2021 date for rollout
- Basho - Scaling (i.e make sure the shit always runs fast)
- Voltaire - Governance (i.e let people vote on new shit)
Now, after reading some of these names and all of the ambitious goals of the Cardano project, you may understandably be impressed and want to sink the rest of your paycheck into ADA, but dear reader, you have to understand that all these ambitions do not mean jack shit if the dev team can't deliver. Cardano's largest criticism was the near two year delay when launching the Shelley phase of their roadmap. It was scheduled for Q2-Q3 of 2018 and delayed until July 2020. I'm sure the reasons for delay were valid, but missing your deadlines is a sure fire way to scare off potential investors.
Shelley did eventually launch, which probably relieved a lot of early ADA investors, but it's been the same story with Goguen. Initially planned for a 2020 launch, now the goal post has been moved to March of 2021. Time will tell if they can actually meet these deliverables, but this is not an industry that waits for stragglers. Legacy projects like Ethereum are already working on solutions to fix the issues that have plagued them, while direct competitors like Zilliqa have solved some of these problems.
I'm sure a Cardano fanboy is going to write "ThEy'vE PuBlIsHeD 40 PeEr ReViEwEd PaPeRs!!!" or maybe something like "ThEy ArE GoInG tO bE 50 tO 100 TiMeS MoRe DeCeNtRaLiZeD ThAn BiTcOIn!!!" or perhaps something like "ThEy MoVe SlOw tO MaKe SuRe It'S RiGhT!!!".
To that I say, it is actually refreshing to see a team more focused on development as opposed to hyping up their coin.
Can you even say you've made it yet if Pornhub doesn't accept your coin?
I also say, I'm not investing into my cousin's custom dildo business concept just because he put together a really cool website and conducted several scientific studies correlating penile shape to pleasure indices.
Now, onto the community!
Why Does the Cardano Community Suck?
Do you all remember when Rick and Morty first aired? It was a fun, high concept cartoon, that had some nihilistic themes, some fun sci-fi concepts, and gags that made everyone watching feel just a little bit smarter for understanding a scientific reference or background joke.
Most of us enjoyed the fresh take on the genre, looked forward to a new episode, and then went about our day after watching. Other's in the Rick and Morty community, decided to be smug dicks about their fandom, believing that they too were as smart as Rick (I can 100% bet they are not).
And then the episode aired with the Szechuan sauce and shit like this started happening:
If you pause at 0:28, you can see the look of a terrified mother who's child will eventually have to go out into this world.
Ultimately, the sci-fi concepts and sciency gags don't actually make Rick and Morty a "smart" show, in the same way naming everything after a dead mathematician doesn't elevate Cardano above everything else in the crypto space. Just because they use a bunch of dead philosophers and scientists to name things, and they publish a bunch of papers, doesn't mean you have to give them your money. It also doesn't make them immune from criticisms.
Try it for yourself!
Go onto any Cardano forum and mention that the only product that has actually been released so far is a staking program and a wallet. Be prepared to be met with several twelve point responses on why you're wrong and why every move Cardano makes is the most calculating and carefully crafted move ever! (with the exception of planning out a schedule.)
Side Note: I like to site around imagining what the office birthday parties are like over at the Cardano foundation. I imagine seven people showing up to a conference room that was double-booked for another meeting, holding a cake that says "It's a Girl" because they ran to the bakery at the last minute and this was all that was left, while the birthday boy/girl never even shows up because the party planner forgot to email them.
You guys just need to take it easy. Staking is neat, but a lot of crypto projects out there have long since accomplished this. It's like bragging that you graduated high school. Cool! Good for you! Join the club! Call me when you get those smart contracts running.
Cardano likely will carve out a place as a solid Ethereum competitor. They certainly have the team in place, and the foundations have been built, but if you took me to construction site and told me that an Outback Steakhouse was coming, that would not stop me from eating dinner somewhere else that night. There are other restaurants out there with working concepts where I can eat until I hate myself, but the moment that Outback is open, I'll definitely be ordering my fat ass a Blooming Onion.
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