Workshop - 23rd May 2025 - Remote

Data Points

• Session recording

• Miro board

• Transcript

Key Learnings

🌍 World in 2030 — Macro Trends & Context

• The world is likely heading toward localized worsening:

  • Wars over water and food

  • Climate change impacting agriculture negatively

  • Mental health crisis

  • Growing wealth disparities

  • Authoritarian trends and cashless societies → concerns about CBDCs and privacy

  • Early quantum computing threats

  • AI everywhere, automating many industries and everyday tasks

  • Increased human migration due to climate and conflict

  • Environmental degradation from AI-related compute demand

  • Digitalization of daily life and ubiquitous internet access

• Key geopolitical trend: De-globalization and fragmentation → blockchain has an opportunity to address new types of trust needs.

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🛡 Opportunities for Blockchain / Cardano

• Blockchain as antifragile tech → resilience in a fragmented, unstable world.

• Cardano’s positioning:

  • Trust layer → proof of truth in digital content

  • Escrow between nations and organizations

  • Blockchain governance as a service

  • Privacy-preserving technologies (ZKPs, secure multi-party computation)

  • RWA tokenization → ownership system in a fragmented world

  • Supply chain security

  • Decentralized identity → foundational for self-sovereign individuals and nations

  • Transparent voting systems

  • Support humanitarian use cases in fragile states

  • Insurance and claims processes on-chain

  • Support for freelance services and decentralized work coordination

• Focus on being business-friendly and enabling enterprise-level transparency and compliance.

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🏛 Governance & Ecosystem Insights

• Cardano should aim for a single shared Vision, but enable multiple Missions and regional adaptations.

• Cardano’s governance must:

  • Stay welcoming to newcomers (avoid "old guard" dominance)

  • Improve reputation and delegation systems

  • Combat voter apathy

  • Be more accessible and transparent

  • Provide clear definitions of L1 vs L2 roles and opportunities

  • Position governance as a valuable product for users and institutions.

• The Vision must be about more than KPIs — focus on purpose and values.

• Support regional visions where appropriate (e.g. differing needs between emerging and developed markets).

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🌱 Adoption & Market Priorities

• Focus on:

  • Land administration

  • Supply chain tracking and procurement

  • Humanitarian and international development use cases

  • Social services

  • DeFi and financial instruments

  • Creator economy & entertainment

  • Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs)

  • AI agent economy

  • Insurance

  • Voting & elections

  • Freelance and escrow services

  • Tourism and voucher systems

• Barriers to adoption:

  • Lack of government willingness and active resistance (esp. corrupt governments)

  • Regulatory uncertainty

  • Immaturity of blockchain primitives and business UX

  • Lack of clear articulation of blockchain’s benefits in critical sectors

  • Lack of builder support and commercial/go-to-market capacity

  • DeFi ecosystem not mature yet → still a gap vs other L1s

  • Complexity and poor onboarding UX for users

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⚠ Risks & Challenges

• CBDCs: double-edged sword → potential chain revenue but risk of undermining decentralization.

• L2 and L1 economics must be aligned to avoid L1 becoming commoditized.

• Cardano must scale L1 to support L2 settlement securely.

• Enterprise demand for transparency and accountability → Cardano is well positioned but must capitalize.

• Key risk: fragmentation of vision → must maintain cohesion while embracing diversity.

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🗳 Community & Cultural Signals

• Strong desire for:

  • Collaborative workshops and open discussion processes.

  • Public sharing of Vision discussions to maintain trust.

  • Support for builders with practical tools and GTMs.

  • Balance between research depth and speed of iteration (“research less, launch more”).

  • Fostering a culture of empathy and inclusive community interactions.

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Summary Narrative

• Cardano is seen as uniquely positioned to be the secure, trustworthy backbone for emerging blockchain-driven solutions in a fragmenting, crisis-prone world.

• The ecosystem must:

  • Double down on transparency, trust, governance as a service, and enterprise readiness.

  • Scale via L2-first strategy, with a clearly defined and robust L1.

  • Support regional needs while maintaining global cohesion of purpose.

  • Sharpen its commercial capacity and builder support ecosystem.

  • Clearly differentiate what problems Cardano is here to solve, and communicate them effectively.