Hi everyone,
I wanted to share some thoughts on Cardano’s trajectory in the current landscape, speaking as someone who’s been here since 2017.
The Voltaire era, with its on-chain governance model, has been live for a while now. Post-Chang Hard Fork, this is, in theory, the most significant leap forward in decentralized governance we’ve ever seen.
However, what truly concerns me is its practical effectiveness. This decentralized governance machine feels cumbersome, almost bureaucratic, when compared to the breakneck pace of our competitors. They can pivot and deploy in weeks to chase meme coin narratives or launch compliant, revocable stablecoins to meet regulatory demands. Meanwhile, we take months for a single voting cycle. By the time our ecosystem delivers comparable products, we often feel a full market cycle behind. When our DEXs or meme coins finally arrive, the narrative has shifted, the space is saturated, and we’re immediately crippled by our chronic lack of deep liquidity.
Fundamentally, our investment has evolved into a bet on the performance of this novel governance model. Its ability to attract users and capital inflows is the ultimate determinant of price action. This uncertainty is compounded by the steady decline in staking rewards. The passive yield that once helped justify our patience is diminishing, putting more pressure on governance and ecosystem growth to deliver tangible value sooner rather than later.
And that long-standing promise of ‘thousands of DApps,’ made even before smart contracts launched, still feels distant. I understand that building something truly new and different is monumentally difficult. But the critical question remains: does this vision still hold enough appeal to keep developers building on a skyscraper foundation that we’ve been laying for nearly a decade?
A foundation whose long-term economic viability is also a major question. Our famously low on-chain transaction fees, while a great feature for users, generate minimal revenue for the treasury and stakers. As the reserve emissions continue to decline, will this fee model be sufficient to secure the network and properly incentivize Stake Pool Operators in the long run.
I didn’t save the link, but in a video posted a few months ago Charles Hoskinson proposed addressing this problem by using treasury funds to buy stablecoins. I think the figure he recommended was $100 million. Of course this idea immediately provoked objections.
Ok. But now that we’re in the governance era, has there been any further debate about it? I kind of feel like there needs to be.
With respect to the title of this post “A 2017 Holder’s Perspective: Is Our Model Economically Sustainable?” Myself, as a supporter, developer, and ADA holder since February 2018 with significant purchases of ADA ever since, I would respectfully add; If there was a way to monetize all of the video content and stage appearances CH has taken part in, I think that would offset that damage they do to the industry’s perception of Cardano and the price of ADA. A simple comparison between the number of AMA’s Satoshi has done versus Vitalik versus CH, it becomes obvious CH has an issue. @CH - Impossible I know; please fade into the background. You did a survey asking if you should go away, the results overwhelmingly said ‘YES’ yet you persist. This is a perfect case study in narcissism. I’ve been here for nearly 8 years. Damn the 2017 ‘White board video’…
Hey fam a few survey and data results that would help you to understand how the first year of budget went , and yes we need to pivot from just building infra to making a environment where business earn, and are able to generate revenue, chasing hype is something where we need to leave it to community , we cant be spending money to chase hype , but we can build a environment where the community can chase hype or build the next trend themsleves