Written by @ElliotHill of the Cardano Foundation
Today, we want to thank Philippe Pierre-Antoine and Rick McCracken for their contribution to the Cardano ecosystem, through their long-standing commitment to The Cardano Effect (TCE) podcast.
The Cardano Effect podcast takes high-level developer and project information related to Cardano, and breaks it down into bite size pieces of consumable information for everyday users. It’s original vision was to deliver unbiased news and drive discussion around Cardano, which it has delivered through hours of original content over the last two years.
Philippe and Rick announced on 12 December that their year’s end recap, the 116th episode of TCE, would be their last. Here, we are going to take a brief look at the journey TCE took from it’s early days in 2018, to its finale at the end of 2020.
What did the Cardano blockchain look like when TCE began?
The Cardano Effect debuted on the 10th November 2018, around a year after the launch of the Cardano blockchain.
When Philippe and Rick started TCE podcast, Cardano was a fledgling protocol still in its infancy. Still operating on the Byron mainnet, Cardano was a simple value layer on which to transfer ₳ada between other participants.
The high-level visions for the Cardano, driven by those working in the Cardano ecosystem and the early adopter community alike, were at this time simply blueprints for the future.
Now, those blueprints have and continue to come to fruition, building solid foundations for a decentralized and innovative ecosystem.
At times, this has been a difficult journey. The TCE and its longstanding fans have had difficult conversations regarding many aspects of Cardano’s implementation and direction. But ultimately, these discussions were driven by a desire to make Cardano one of the most robust and decentralized blockchains’ and communities’ to date.
With 72 episodes sponsored by IOHK, and 44 episodes sponsored by the Cardano Foundation, TCE has been a quality and highly-researched podcast. Philippe and Rick, both of whom have an extensive tech-background, have kept viewers informed with engaging and informative discussions.
Over time, TCE grew to over 8,000 subscribers, becoming one of the most-watched sources of Cardano ecosystem news.
The Cardano Effect also regularly welcomed special guests to the show, including IOHK developer talent, key stakeholders from the Cardano Foundation, as well as blockchain experts from different and diverse fields.
The Cardano Foundation was pleased to see our new CEO, Frederik Gregaard, appear on TCE in November 2020. Just three episodes before TCE’s grand finale, Frederik discussed the future of Cardano, and a new era for the Foundation. If you haven’t seen this episode already, we recommend you watch it here:
How has Cardano transformed since 2018?
Now two years after TCEs launch, Cardano has made significant strides towards a fully decentralized blockchain network. We have seen the launch of staking and delegation through Shelley, and in the coming months, we will welcome developers and enterprises through tokenization and smart contracts.
Many of these high-level visions for the Cardano blockchain have already been discussed in the hundreds of hours of content from The Cardano Effect. In fact, it may be fair to say that some of these discussions have likely helped shape the direction of the Cardano protocol itself.
Alongside IOHK, the Cardano Foundation has been proud to sponsor this invaluable community-led podcast, which has provided so many hours of value to our community.
We are now pleased to see many other ecosystem participants take inspiration from The Cardano Effect, and launch their own dedicated Cardano content channels to keep our community informed of the latest Cardano news.
Thank you, and keep building!
We want to thank both Philippe and Rick for the time and commitment they have put into building The Cardano Effect.
We recognize that behind each of the 116 episodes, there was a significant unseen investment in time and resources, and the long-lasting positive effects your podcast has had on the Cardano ecosystem has been instrumental to building our diverse community.
For those who want to listen to the complete podcast collection, you can find TCE episodes 1‒116 on their YouTube Channel, or on Libsyn.com, where they will be hosted indefinitely.
Why not also follow Philippe and Rick on Twitter, to keep up with their future projects? We are sure they will both continue to be active participants in the Cardano ecosystem.
We look forward to seeing new podcasts and Cardano-related shows grow alongside our ecosystem during 2021.
