Jon Kravetz

It's clear to me that CSWAP is the DEX where community needs to LP. Why? $CSWAP is not a throw away emissions token, it's a yield bearing asset that scales linearly with usage. Participation on CSWAP is rewarded with long term alignment. This is meaningful differentiation.

@CardanoWEED says im muted

When Cardano ecosystem users have positive experiences, then we all win. This has to be a core focus for the remainder of 2026.

Wow. @LayerZero_Core marketing is incredible. What a post! Love it! Can’t wait to integrate @CswapDEX!

@phillip_pon @ItsDave_ADA Would love to see Phillip harness his political skills to benefit Cardano, rather than just Emurgo. Time will tell....

Hi @ItsDave_ADA, I’m writing this now—on a Sunday—because I saw your post about stepping back from Midnight content. We cannot afford another "Cardano Whale" situation where we lose a vital community voice because of friction or a lack of clarity. I listened to the snippet from @IOHK_Charles. I think he's trying to help diffuse so I am grateful for his ongoing support of @emurgo_io . I had intended to wait until Monday (in Singapore to respond) as I wanted to learn all of the issues that community cared most about. To be honest, I know I won't be able to satisfy everyone. There are some people who just want to see us fail (or just post for memes or attention). But... You, Cardano Yoda @JaromirTesar , and others are the reason this ecosystem has a soul. You fight because you care, and you’re pushing for something the "real world" rarely offers: true transparency and fairness. I want you to know that I don’t just hear you; I recognize the validity of what you’re and others like @dori_coin are saying. To be completely candid, I have been having active discussions with the Cardano Foundation @Cardano_CF about the very issues you’ve raised. I’ve been contemplating capping or even reducing Emurgo’s voting power to ensure we don’t become a point of centralization. Fred @F_Gregaard can attest to this—in fact, he recently directed me to a university professor specializing in blockchain governance. I spoke with him last week and asked him the same tough questions you’re asking me. His response actually surprised me, and it's changed how I'm looking at the problem. There is a formal paper coming out in a couple of months that explores this exact dynamic on Cardano. While I know that feels "too late" for the current heat of the moment, I’ve committed to having Yoroi participate in the study so we can use data, not just intuition, to fix this. To address your two main points directly: Decentralization & Emurgo's Power: I agree that a founding entity holding too much sway is antithetical to our core tenets. I am open to concessions here. Still there has to be a place for casual ADA holders to delegate to DReps who actually vote (everytime), who provide rationales, and who can be held accountable (like what you are doing now). For better or worse, we are one of those places. Still, I think the more important concession to make is the one below. Yoroi UI/UX: You are 100% right. It should be easier to find and select diverse DReps. We shouldn't be "defaulting" into a position of power through better placement; the tech should empower community choice. I believe @Cerkoryn even wrote some scripts on this. My tech team told me about so we are looking into it. What I will tell you is this... I will commit to building an easier governance centre for @YoroiWallet where choosing other DRep is at least a drop down menu or click. I will direct a squad on Monday to review @Cerkoryn scripts and if they are easy to implement (and back tested as safety is the most important thing for a wallet), we will either work to deploy them or do better. I will also put a pause (by disabling the delegation) on @YoroiWallet accumulating any more voting power until the governance centre is complete. I am not a technologist so I don't know if that requires us to resubmit to Apple Store or Google Play, so I will get you an update on Monday after I speak with the tech team. I just need you to know the intent is there. The governance centre will take a couple of sprints but I will publicly commit to fixing it. I also have a serious ask for you @ItsDave_ADA @JaromirTesar and others in the community: once we address the above Emurgo, how do we address the rest of the top 25? Alliances will form or have formed. Outside entities will enter who may not have best interest of the community at heart. If we don't solve the underlying mechanism, we’re just kicking the can down the road until a truly malevolent actor comes along to extract value. Furthermore, how do we reach the 75% who don't vote? If they stay silent, the fate of Cardano is left to 10–15 DReps —which I know is the last thing you want. The professor shared that voter apathy is actually the biggest issue to governance. We see this IRL too. Anyways, that's for another day. Next Steps: Let's talk IRL: Twitter is great for a voice, but irl is where we solve problems. I’d like to jump on a call with you to dive deeper. Feel free to DM me. I can do the same. I sincerely hope you are willing to talk. We are not fully AI bots yet. :) Open Table: We should invite Cardano Yoda and whoever else you feel brings a fresh, open-minded perspective. I actually welcome it and we should record it so it's on the record. Common Ground: Our goal is the same—a Cardano where founding entities matter less over time, and the community matters more. You aren't on a witch hunt; you're vested in our success. I see this clearly. Let’s work together to make sure that success is actually decentralized.

@InASingleWord We have no idea what's going on with the budget. Dapp builders and DeFi experts are completely left out of this process.

I try to attend the Intersect Budget Committee weekly meetings so I stay up to date. Anyone can attend these Monday calls, you just cant speak or use the chat. You're an observer. No real spoilers, they're still aiming for April to collect 2026 proposals. Today's call was a bit cryptic. They reviewed a document that they did not share on screen, only viewed independently and spoke on that so a little hard to follow. They are being urged to get the process out quickly it seems. Makes sense. Interesting discussion about the need to pay people to do technical reviews and about conflict of interests around every corner. Great discussion on ensuring the communication plan is solid and starts early.

@adamKDean @cardanostra @Plutus_Plumbus @pyro_ae If the on-chain economy isn't enough incentive to build on Cardano, then grants become necessary. If you don't understand this or agree with me, that's fine.

Literally no one is saying you shouldn't be paying your devs same/similar rates. You're just the only one convinced that you're owed a stipend or subsidy to pay your devs to create your for-profit company and the only way you know how to do that is to get a grant or "max extract from the community".

Discussing salary ranges and what "we" as a community are willing to pay for work performed is important, especially for core infrastructure development. However, a key thing that I believe the majority of the conversation currently misses is that the "cost" of an employee is substantially higher than just their base salary. I was always advised to add about 30% more to account for taxes, compliance, etc and that is backed up by @grok's estimates here. It's okay to still believe these costs are too high (and they likely are even in various parts of the US where cost of living is substantially lower than California, the North East, etc). One question we have to ask and answer ourselves though is whether we want to budget to hire the best candidate for the job regardless of location or whether we must look for the cheapest available candidates in order to find workers at our price point. x.com/i/grok/share/b…

@adamKDean @cardanostra @Plutus_Plumbus @pyro_ae I don't think we're owed anything. If Cardano wants to grow the ecosystem it will think long and hard about the incentive models. Folks should be incentivized to build products with +EV for users...not work on low risk infrastructure projects with top market rates.

@adamKDean @cardanostra @Plutus_Plumbus @pyro_ae Right now its more attractive to be an infrastructure dev and charge top dollar, then it is to build products. The top devs on Cardano are not building products...they are taking infra grants and contracts.

@adamKDean @cardanostra @Plutus_Plumbus @pyro_ae Oh. I don't think I'm the only one convinced of this. I think it's actually a fair argument. You think infrastructure devs aren't for-profit? Lol. I see infrastructure teams as the most profitable on Cardano right now.

@cardanostra @Plutus_Plumbus @adamKDean @pyro_ae Are infra devs expected to pick up axes and shovels? Or only product devs...that's the question. There is this strange idea that only infra devs should be fairly paid to help build up Cardano. I don't get it. They don't produce revenue. Why are we incentivizing operations?

@Plutus_Plumbus @adamKDean @CSWAP_Destroy @pyro_ae I don't mind paying generously to a skilled and experienced senior, but $100k/year earning intern is overpriced no matter where he is located.

Those who know me, know that I care deeply about honesty and fairness. I think its more important than ever to support Cardano DeFi project founders who act with integrity and don't take community trust for granted. We are the ones that protect holders and Cardano's reputation.

@RSWilliams73 @IOHK_Charles As a Cardano DeFi founder that started my project after seeing several users harmed in a similar situation, I can relate to your frustration and anger. It makes it hard for those of us who take our obligations seriously.

@IOHK_Charles After $LENFI rugged its community, I have no trust in Cardano DeFi ... too many scumbags, liars, undoxxed con artists in the space.

Statement on liqwid.finance after talking with everyone

@DaveXCrypto @IOHK_Charles Thanks for driving awareness here. I have had problems in the past with another team going back on their word (which is why I started CSWAP).

@IOHK_Charles Thanks for making a statement on this Charles.

@IOHK_Charles Thanks for doing this Charles. It's important that we hold each other up to high standards of integrity.

Everything CSWAP has been building towards will become clear this year. I think most people across the Cardano ecosystem will be excited about what we've accomplished & the potential it brings. We're really enjoying working with our peers and the community to make this happen.

@ElderM Ooh I like this...

Challenge accepted. However, I will not include prompts in my commits because prompt engineering is antiquated AI development methods. I will develop this all in the open, and share the techniques I use to do it. You will be able to follow along here: github.com/steelswap/vibe…

@Murphy00713 Its the only way this industry is sustainable. If it's all big fish / eat little fish....there will be no more little fish.

@CSWAP_Destroy It would be nice to see more of this mindset, if even the little guy can make money I'm sure you would see more users .

Cardano product teams should be incentivized to create profits for community members, not for their own teams? Why? It's because winners tell family and friends, and losers leave the ecosystem. If we want to grow Cardano revenue streams, it starts with creating a positive experience for users. Expecting small product teams to float the bill for this, or take dilutive funding is the wrong strategy. It is slower to create win-win situations for ecosystem participants, but its the only way to create sustainable growth in crypto. Teams that do this will be rewarded in the long run.

The thing is, (at least for the current crypto era) in order to build a sustainable profitable business on Cardano...we need the users to have a +EV experience. This costs something. We aren't asking to be paid well, we are asking for support. We aren't just building products to tap in to an existing market. We have to grow the market. This is expensive. It is much easier to build a product for an existing market. Asking us to do the heavy lifting for Cardano on our own with no material support is unreasonable.

What does simply paying someone to build their own (or your) product bring us as an ecosystem? Where is their or your inventive to build a profitable, self-sustaininy product or service if you can simply get your non-sub-human salary paid by the Treasury? I very much wish/hope for the day when product devs get paid regular, industry standard salaries and we have a host of profitable products running on top of the ecosystem

@TheRealWeb3Kat @benohanlon I'm also going to respond/comment this weekend!

@benohanlon @CSWAP_Destroy Hey, yes, I read your article earlier - brilliant! I was thinking of writing a post to summarize it, might do that tomorrow 🤝

Cardano has a choice to make. Do we want an extraction economy, where teams and VCs profit from users… Or an ownership economy, where users profit alongside the teams building here? The second path is slower. But it’s the only one that creates real, lasting growth.

Its about subsidizing costs. Product teams on Cardano generate tx volume which already produces revenue for the chain. Product teams need to 500x tx volume over the next 5 years to replace liquid staking rewards. This is a tall ask... I don't think grant funding has been strategic in the past. Like I said, the goal should be +EV for users within the ecosystem. The KPI we measure: TX volume, TVL, MAU...they only tell us about usage. If the usage is extractive, then it needs to be paired with metrics like user churn to have a true understanding of what's happening. If we all agree that meaningful growth can only come from +EV for users, then we should be using that as a basis for funding. Attracting users to Cardano benefits Cardano, not just the project...