Cardano Foundation FAQ

[HeptaSean]

@Terminada

This is the latest explanation of the history from Charles Hoskinson and is a rebuttal of some of the colour that Frederik Gregaard provided.

He only seems to half-understand it and, of course – everybody is the hero in their own story, he paints his view of it as objective fact. Always his style. I can’t stand it. Makes me puke. (And that so many buy this style and admire him for it is just exasperating.)

Yes, he is right, if he already had the plan of a “members-based organisation” back then, then his choice of a foundation as structure for that was phenomenally bad. No, the idea to “just” move it to another jurisdiction was never good, never possible.

Foundations according to Swiss (and also German) law are made for eternity. They can’t be terminated at will and moved elsewhere. Not even the founder can. (And in this case, it is not even clear who that founder really is and who can represent them.)

And that the supervisory authority (not “the government”) stepped in when they tried it, could have been kind of obvious. He performs the “mental Jiu-Jitsu” he accuses others of right in front of our eyes, first describing in detail how the current board was selected by the previous one – including the members from IOG – and then claiming again that this obviously means that “the Swiss government appointed the board”. Is it to trigger the hate of the crypto community towards their simplistic imagination of “evil governments”?

That foundations cannot be terminated and modified at will is usually a good thing. And even if it may not have been his intent (gotta take his word for it), it also seems to be a good thing for Cardano to have an independent, not-for-profit institution forming their own opinion and acting on it.

@Terminada

CF is not a private company and in contrast to a private company the CF officeholders owe a duty to the Cardano community.

Factually false:

Art. 2 Purpose

The Foundation’s mission is to promote developments for new technologies as well as applications, primarily within new, open and decentralised software architectures. It is the aim that decentralised and open technologies will be developed, nurtured, promoted and maintained. A focus dominates the promotion of the development of the Cardano Protocol and the relevant technology for it in addition to the promotion and support of applications using the technology or the Protocol.

https://forum.cardano.org/t/understanding-the-internal-governance-of-the-cardano-foundation-purpose-statuten/140926#p-363718-art-2-purpose-5

That’s the purpose they have to fulfil. And only that.

Again, usually a good thing. If a foundation is founded to support the arts, an association of artists cannot organise and claim that they are doing it wrong and force them to do it differently. If a foundation is founded to support homeopathy, the scientific community cannot organise, claim that that is utter bs (although they would be totally correct in this case) and force them to stop.

@Terminada

There can be severe consequences for officeholders that don’t properly comply with their various duties and poor decisions can be overturned through legal challenges.

Yes, you can sue them if you feel what they are doing is illegal. Have fun with that. sigh