I’ve been busy.. too busy.. but there’s no way I could have passed up the things that were offered up on my plate this year. I’m plugging away at my day job, where things are really picking up. I’m also buried in Mehen work, focusing on all of the minor details to deliver a stellar experience for our USDM users on Cardano.
Outside of the tech world, myself and 2 others took over our self defense and Krav Maga gym, Kore Self Defense. I took over as the Lead Instructor and have been handling a lot of the “General Manager” work. It’s been a lot.. the website was always in good shape, but I need to update the instructor page yet. The previous owner is still teaching there, but she’s also the founder of one of our missions, 500 Rising. That has been growing faster than she could have ever hoped, and it’s been awesome to see! I really am excited for this venture!
Over the past 2 months, Cardano changed the minimum fixed fee from 340 ADA to 170 ADA. We changed our pool shortly after that change. The decrease in min fee significantly impacts our mission donations. We felt that in order to keep them relevant, we’d need to make changes. It was a tough decision, but we decided to retire our Captive Audience mission. They are still doing amazing work around the world, and they offer some unique training opportunities that you should take advantage of if possible! We then changed the donations to be split evenly in half to the Third Option Foundation and 500 Rising. With the end of the year coming up, we are also making our donations a little earlier to close out the year.
As most people know, we were intending to deliver Mehen today, December 19th. We needed to push back the deployment to better support the smart contract audit process. The Mehen app seems like it would be a really simple app to build, but when you dig deep into the legal requirements required to run this app, it becomes increasingly complicated. It’s been a great project to be a part of, and I’m more than excited to get this to the community, but we can’t let our enthusiasm distract us from the security requirements needed to build the first fiat backed stablecoin on Cardano.
As it stands, users can run through the KYC process. They can attach their Cardano wallet, and their bank. They can make a small deposit of ADA to verify they own the wallet they are using. KYC’d users can create a business and then switch between their personal account and their business account. We have automated reporting for different IRS and AML requirements, and we have automated checks against our controlled wallets to check for transactions made outside of the app. Things are moving along really well. If all goes well with the audit and the FDIC or SEC doesn’t decide to simply kill all crypto next quarter, we should be good to go!
Over the past couple of months, I increased my pledge to 175k and set the absolute minimum fee of a 170 fixed fee and a 0% variable fee. Then last week and into this week, our pool picked up a number of new delegates, to include a massive 14.5 million ADA delegate. I’m hoping that this is finally the point where our pool has “made” it. It’s been a long 2 years to get here. It started with a ton of sweat equity being poured into the ecosystem, which led to our Catalyst project, ADA Bounties, the Meld Bank Manager mint, and Mehen. Even if ADA for Warriors has finally “arrived”, I will continue to build, even after we deliver Mehen (our MVP isn’t even close to everything we want to deliver). No one needs to worry about that!
These past 2 months have pretty much exhausted me, but the setup for next year is beyond what I could’ve imagined coming into 2023. I’m really excited for 2024, Mehen, my Krav Maga gym, and everything else that’s going on in my life.
If you are a delegate, thank you for your support. My missons thank you for your support. To my friends, co-workers, and family, thank you for being a part of my 2023 ride! A lot of my success is due to the people around me, who support me, who work with me, who have been mentors for me. Without you, I’m not where I am today. From my heart, thank you.
Here’s to 2024! Cheers!
Please contact us if you have questions or if you would like additional information regarding the 4WARD pool.