Cardstarter and SundaeSwap

hi this is Charles hoskinson broadcasting live from warm sunny Colorado always warm Always Sunny sometimes Colorado today is January 24th 2022 and I'm making a video to discuss the latest drama of the day which is card starter V Sunday swap for some reason people want to drag me into this one so your wish is my command let's talk about it most companies when these things happen they go ahead and go to their press and PR department they say let's issue a can statement and then they just hide behind that but we're not most companies guy at the top is me and when you guys won't talk about something we talk about it and so here's the situation as I've been able to put together so first I didn't know very much about any of this until after it hit Reddit and Twitter and Discord and Telegram and other places and coindesk reached out to me this morning and I'm like okay why are you guys talking to me this is a commercial dispute between Sunday Swap and card starter IO has no control over any of these entities wasn't involved in any of these conversations any of these discussions there's zero input output footprint in any of this but for some reason we keep being asked for comment and people keep dragging us to through Twitter and there's even been people saying well maybe we should sue IO or something and that just is a testimony to Reddit driven and Twitter driven dispute resolution as well as a lack of maturity by some people so let's go through what's been said so I have I'll share my screen here and then I will open since you guys have asked me so first off there was an article that came out just today and I imagine the coin desk one will have more detail failed promises and rug poll accusations card starter and Sunday swap blame each other disappointing benefits for c-swap CS swap token liquidity provider has them up in arms with cardstarter and Sunday swap saying they are not responsible so basically this Samuel Juan guy says some stuff and and apparently uses the fact that two entities on a blockchain that are independent that are centralized entities have a commercial dispute to make a statement about cardano the protocol in the ecosystem just shows you the garbage journalism that we have in this space so for those of you who don't know cart's daughter says they're the first insured accelerator on cardano they're a decentralized accelerator for swapping platforms connected to early stage cardano innovators and Community donors okay and here's some of their projects here's the team and some of the relationships good Sunday swap is a DEX on cardano now somewhere along the way last year these two entities decided to start discussions and plan something out about how they could mutually benefit each other Sunday swap wrote a blog post about 17 hours ago and I'm going to read it out and I would have loved to have had a blog post from cardstarter there is none there's just a tweet I'll go to the Tweet after this blog post because I'm just trying to reconstruct history here the Sunday swap team has for the past few days been very concerned about the card starter investor community and their disappointment with not being part of the Sunday swap Decks at launch or receiving any Sunday as rewards for the past many months and continuing until today Sunday has been engaging with cardstarter on expanding our relationship to include an agreement where Sunday tokens could be earned by cardstarter investors that move their Holdings to the Sunday swap decks however despite giving the cardstarter team the flexibility we felt they needed to address these important issues no agreement has been reached and no substantive proposal has been made by the cardstarter team for these reasons we'd like to now share what we feel are a few relevant facts with the community and what we propose to do to address the concerns of the cardstarter investors the relationship between cardstarter and Sunday swap is indeed based solely on marketing and collaboration agreement from June as communicated publicly here in the collude lake Sunday swap cannot control how other party to an agreement May characterize it to others including their investors however we acknowledge that out of enthusiasm for the relationship members of our team have have on two occasions chosen their words poorly when characterizing the agreement and hope for future liquidity provision relationship rut roll that doesn't sound good when these misstatements are stacked against the many more correct statements and the public release mentioned before we do not believe that Sunday swap contributed to any misunderstandings by the cardstarter community as many have asserted I don't have any material basis one way or the other for that and this is why I'm a bit frustrated that I can't find a blog post from cardstarter because there seems to be a disagreement about understanding here between the two parties and if there was a blog post from cardstarter if they did release one send it to me I'm happy to read it out just like reading the Sunday at least we could compare contrast statements the terms of the June agreement are bound by a mutual non-disclosure provision as is routine with commercial agreements so we cannot share full details of the agreement without cardstarter's consent I don't know if that's being disputed or not that's an assertion that carts that Sunday is making but again I have no material basis to know if it's true or not they could publish the non-disclosure agreement and the signatures that would be something I suppose that would would be okay we are compelled by circumstances to say two things however first the agreement is in no way a merger of two companies and does not call for any similar acquisition sale or other transaction okay second the agreement did include a mutual promise to have a good faith discussion regarding merging cardstarter liquidity to Sunday swap decks once listed and regarding Distributing Sunday swap tokens when issued as a reward to card starter innovators investors for that liquidity now here's the Crux of it no money tokens or anything else of value with paid or promised by any other party to the others in the June agreement Sunday swap has not received any card C swap or other tokens since that time okay we stand by our commitment blah blah blah and then there's some Social Media stuff about mischaracterization and yes we've been wrong wrong and this is the Maya culpa right here where apparently they want to give away 20 million Sunday tokens so what's cards saying well card did this they published right after or right around when this blog post came out screenshots and this is the CEO of cardstarter Amir and then two of the Sunday people are Tim and Quantum okay and basically this is from October 31st and then this is from January 18th and it looks a revision of an agreement of 150 million to 10 million so this is a this is a very frustrating situation for me because a screenshot is not a commercial agreement it's not a negotiation and if there were contracts usually they're built with first here's a memorandum of understanding or some agreement where we're going to begin negotiations and here are the parameters of negotiations followed by an agreement that supersedes all of the oral and side written things we usually call that an entire agreement there is no contract that's been published either way and apparently there's some form of non-disclosure agreement I would argue that that commercial conversation in telegram or Discord or wherever that screenshot came from would probably be a violation of the non-disclosure agreement now I can understand the frustration if card starter feels that they had an understanding and that understanding was 150 and now it's been downvized to 10 because the price went up I'd feel pretty hurt too but the question was was that understanding encapsulated in a contract so how do you resolve this well you resolve that through either a lawsuit or arbitration or a future negotiation so I guess they downvized from 150 to 10 there's been a counter now of 20 and I apparently they've decided to take this litigation of Affairs into the public domain and drag me into it why I don't know because I'm Charles hoskinson and IO is a big player in this space I have no control or command or Providence over any of these actors I can't wave my hand and say cardstarter do this or Sunday do that I don't have any legal influence or material control of the fact that matters second I was left out of all of these things and rightfully so because these are two independent Ventures out of 200 that are in the cardano ecosystem and what's happening right now is this communication between these two entities and its publicity does nothing to serve either of them increases the possibility of litigation because bad faith is occurring and ultimately damages the brand of cardano really not helping anybody in this respect now the crypto media is going to do what it always does they're going to publish incredibly negative unfair biased articles about cardano and assert that because two independent entities out of 200 are having a commercial spat because they didn't handle their negotiations well that those particular entities are a representative sample of the cardano experience and ignore everything else which is just sickeningly terrible and bad and it is what it is but this is the nature of what we've had to deal with as an ecosystem for years for example last year with the Ethiopia announcement with coindesk in particular we told them hey look we just closed 5 million users for cardano and they said well we need to wait for confirmation we said here is the video of the minister who runs the Ministry of Education eight minutes talking about the i o relationship and deal and how this works on cardano and the benefits to Ethiopia and so forth they say well we don't care what the minister has to say we want independent confirmation from the ministry itself that's like Biden saying something but then saying well we're waiting on our email to come back from the White House to confirm if the White House is really doing that or not meanwhile the New York Times published about it in remarkably coindesk made the decision to say well we we have higher journalistic standards than the New York Times we're going to wait for our independent confirmation not the fact that they've already published and we've gotten the video that's where we're at with the crypto media in general that's just the fact of the matter so this is going to be covered one particular way to card starter into Sunday my recommendation is you guys get together and you guys negotiate with each other in good faith now Sunday is making the assertation that they've attempted to do so with cardstarter again I don't have a blog post or rebuttal to what Sunday is saying and I'm sorry a tweet is not a rebuttal you don't do these things over Twitter or Reddit come on guys be [ __ ] professionals write a blog post or something and outline the material facts that were outlined in the Sunday blog post and explain why they're wrong and if you guys had commercial agreements you had contracts you had other things okay point to those documents show signatures these types of things that's how we resolve commercial disputes if you're going to litigate this in the entire public domain which I wouldn't recommend doing maybe both entities could agree to enter arbitration how about you two get together and do a joint press release and say look we obviously have some issues to resolve here there's a material movement of value Sunday's already putting on the table I guess 20 million Sunday tokens whatever the hell that's worth that seems to be a lot it's gotten to a point that maybe a independent third party that is trusted mutually selected by both part come together and act as an arbitrator doesn't that seem to be fair and reasonable or you guys can just Babble over Twitter and Reddit and damage the entire cardano ecosystem and at the end of the day provide no value to anybody and just give more red meat to a media that already has decided to bet against us because their VC backers chose different chains to love and enjoy and drag us all through the mud decision's yours but what I have nothing to do with any of this and I really don't appreciate being dragged into it at the end of the day there are hundreds of projects here and there will be commercial disputes in these projects always because people are people that's why you have founder agreements that's why you have the entire clause and a contract that's why you have dozens of protective measures during negotiation and when you have kids who are in their 20s and 30s who haven't done business before start doing things at a stake of seven figures and eight figures they're bound to make mistakes those of you who buy into these projects you have to ask on The Upfront do we feel there's enough business maturity in these projects for them to be good custodians of the trust that we've put in them and if you can't answer that with a definitive yes make sure that you understand going in that this is the risk of these things happening now there are things we can do as an ecosystem to help these things along and actually we're seeing this in the ethereum ecosystem and others for example there's a pro a protocol called clearose it's a Justice protocol it's a decentralized arbitration service so maybe we don't have the business Acumen with a lot of these small startups but if they're Catalyst funded we can mandate that they utilize a decentralized Justice protocol that can do the arbitration and distribution when disputes like these happen there's a lovely blog post here decentralized Justice a comparative analysis of blockchain online dispute resolution projects written by some academics now look guys where you can engage me and we can talk about this the i o side is if hey would you be prepared to give a grant or technical assistance in the development of the decentralized justice and arbitration protocols for when disputes occur and as a condition of funding or participation we can mandate that the protocols have this I'd be more than happy to provide a grant I'd absolutely be more than happy and I guarantee you we can talk to the foundation and get them excited about this type of stuff too as including Catalyst funding as well there's no doubt that we can put a lot of resources towards to building these type of infrastructure so that we can compensate for the fact that people are young and inexperienced but in general I can't sit here because I have neither the Mandate the power or the desire to arbitrate disputes between two independent commercial entities that are just so happen of choosing to be building on top of cardano because it's an ending look how many disputes on a regular basis occur on binance Smart chain on ethereum on bitcoin my God we've lived through so many of them I'd be here all day long and how much time am I spending getting pipelining done or input endorsers or all of the governance infrastructure that we have to build for cardano and a Litany of other things that are on our to-do list I don't have time to do everything or desire and I don't have the power or mandate to do everything it's a decentralized ecosystem so the best I could do is opine and comment and if you request that I do you get a video like this and it's an unsatisfactory video because at the end of the day I'm learning as you guys are learning we were not in any of these negotiations we don't know anything about these things so they come up and we're like okay well I guess I'm just gonna have to reconstruct history from Twitter and Reddit and Telegram and Discord and blog posts or the lack thereof and no matter what I say somebody's going to say well there's more to the story you should have done that or you should have done that I'm sorry it's not my job to mandate or litigate these types of things so the best I can give is advice like anybody else both entities if you care about cardano and you want to act in good faith get together issue a joint press release and agree to arbitration that's how you handle dispute resolution pick an arbitrator there seems to be in the screenshots that I've seen probably the ones tweeted by cardstarter probably breaking an NDA some notion of an oral agreement over some notion of distribution but that's just a snapshot into a broader series of conversations I'm not saying this happened but what if there were 45 other screenshots that could be produced by the Sunday team saying hey actually we're not going to do that this is what we're going to do and maybe they agreed to it on the other side we don't know we don't that's why lawsuits have a discovery process that's why information gets subpoenaed and so forth when these things occur so if there's good faith and an actual desire for the community both sides should come together agree to some form of arbitration and have the arbitrator sit down and think about it and receive all that information and see if they can come to a negotiation that they feel is fair and then obviously it's for those two commercial entities to justify whatever they've decided to their communities and have to deal with the consequences of it and if you the community feel that that's not fair or that wasn't what you were told you obviously have the ability to sue those entities that's how you get things done and in the future all projects on cardano please make sure to use good business hygiene Founders agreements non-disclosure agreements that actually matter in communication channels that actually matter and make sure that you converge to contractual understandings of things prior to any announcements and manage expectations accordingly if you don't do that you get to where we're at and then it becomes he said she said and the crypto media is just eating it up red meat for them another opportunity to kick cardano whenever they have an opportunity to do that they just take it okay so I hope you're happy dragging me into this and that's all you're going to get from me that's all I can say that's all that can be said from the i o side and yes there will be more of these things because by definition it's a decentralized ecosystem and there's 200 now if we keep doing what we do there'll be two thousand and then twenty thousand and then fifty thousand and my God nation states are going to fight each other look at for example Bitcoin with El Salvador and the League of Nations where the IMF is getting involved and all these other people there's all these disputes that are occurring and so forth okay this is the nature of decentralized protocols there's always somebody somewhere on the rainbow who is pissed off and feels they didn't get a good deal and now they're upset about it we can solve the problem for our dap ecosystem by building decentralized Justice protocols and arbitration protocols and then baking them into the funding expectations and the project management expectations we already see this maturing in the ethereum ecosystem there's no reason why we can't do the same for our own ecosystem I'm happy to participate at that level because we can add value at that level we can design protocols we can write code we can do all kinds of things we can vet people and work with those people to help them get that along but what I can't do is be the arbitrator for these types of things because it's not my role in place and if there was any entity at all in this place to have that discussion why don't you all go throw it over to Fred's side and go talk to the foundation they've taken a position of neutrality maybe they're willing to do arbitration work who knows or at least recommend it here and there when there's a need for the ecosystem but IO can't do anything we can't wave our hand and make Sunday do something we can't wave our hand and make card start or do something we don't have that material control or interest so all you can do is just yell at me if it makes you feel better go ahead but at the end of the day is that going to solve your problem no so please people get your [ __ ] together both sides come together agree to arbitration talk to each other and figure it out and then sell it to your communities whatever the hell that you agree to and get it done and if you can't somehow survive the arbitration process obviously the courts are always available to you but let me tell you one thing it is not acceptable if you are a fiduciary of an organization to use Twitter Reddit Telegram and other channels in the social media to make your case don't do that it's despicable it doesn't do anything other than try to abdicate your personal responsibility and damage the brand of the ecosystem as a whole yet another fight solves no problems at all so if there's Goodwill on both sides great if there's no more Goodwill on both sides then announce that write a blog post or make a public statement saying negotiation has ended and litigation has you have a fiduciary responsibility to litigate if your community feels that they're entitled to that and you agree with them then go Sue and get it done but don't go ahead and spat over Twitter in Facebook and Reddit and all these other places and drag the crypto media into this it's pointless it serves no benefit so that's all I'm going to say I hope it does get resolved again if there is a blog post from cardstarter let me know I'll go ahead and read it out if it's rebuttal of what was published with Sunday swap because I have tried to stay as neutral as possible in this respect and I was looking for both sides and I was going to try to provide both sides all I got was a blog post from Juan saying there was no deal we discussed it but we never got there it seems like some things were said during the negotiations that created an impression of something but again I don't have the facts and circumstances because we don't have the full readouts of all the message logs it's like litigating a divorce and only looking at a single text message it makes no sense to do that that's not fair to anybody and a tweet that's all I have alongside some Reddit posts and some telegram messages and a lot of angry people over Twitter who seem to be intent on adding me here so it is what it is hi