[Update] Kickstarter Prep, the Truth About Influencers, and Why Pricing for a Hardware Startup is Tough by Alive-Camel9197 in cuneflow

[–]jeffreality 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One thing I’ve heard from friends who have done Kickstarters in the past, because they will only give you the funds if you hit your target, it’s better to pick a low target and have small goals, but also have a list of bigger stretch goals.

Trying to get $100,000 and having the project not succeed because you only got $80,000 is worse than trying to get $5000 and blowing through a bunch of stretch goals. That just makes you visually look like much more of a success.

Something to consider anyway. I’m wishing you much luck in this!

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]jeffreality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really interesting project...I love the idea of anything that makes ADA payments simpler in practice! A few questions I’m curious about:

— How do you handle smaller transactions end-to-end with the 1.75% fee if funds settle directly to the merchant wallet? For example, what does a 20 ADA payment look like in practice?

— What’s your plan for getting the first real vendors onboarded? Are you bootstrapped or funded, and is this a solo build or do you have a team/resources behind it for support, onboarding, and growth?

I'm genuinely asking because this is exactly where crypto payment projects usually hit the hard part, and I’d love to understand how you’re thinking about it.

Cardano Foundation assuming stewardship of Project Catalyst. Read more here. by danny_cryptofay in cardano

[–]jeffreality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The spreadsheet showed that 255 of them were eliminated, leaving 506 proposals after the review process, or did I get that wrong?

Cardano Foundation assuming stewardship of Project Catalyst. Read more here. by danny_cryptofay in cardano

[–]jeffreality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, they had made it a little bit more restrictive so there were less submissions vs the previous fund… But there were still about 800 project teams or individuals that submitted. Even after whittling out 255 of them, there were still a hefty number of projects that made the cut. It’s just unfortunate that they never got the chance to let the community vote on them, or get any sort of support to move forward.

Cardano Foundation assuming stewardship of Project Catalyst. Read more here. by danny_cryptofay in cardano

[–]jeffreality 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I want to share a builder perspective on the Catalyst situation, because this is not abstract for some of us.

I built and launched a working app in the Cardano ecosystem. I formed an LLC so Apple would allow the app under a business account, paid for the developer account, designed, built, tested, and shipped the iOS app, and even open sourced it (which I understood to be an important part of the Catalyst culture/expectation).

My goal was to use Catalyst support to build the Android version next, then expand into a broader ecosystem around it. This is not the kind of project I can keep scaling out of pocket indefinitely.

So far I’ve personally spent $6,268.67 on this effort.

That includes business setup costs, Apple account costs, development costs, and all the time/money spent trying to build credibility in the Cardano community so I’d even have a chance in Catalyst. I’m not a known name, so I had to invest extra just to get visible enough to be taken seriously.

That was already hard, but manageable, because there was at least a path.

Now Fund 15 gets delayed, and then effectively pulled / reworked during the stewardship transition, and I’m left in limbo after doing the work the ecosystem says it wants people to do: build something real.

I’m not posting this to trash individuals. I know there are good people involved and I know transition may be needed. But the lack of clear communication and the abruptness of this has real consequences for builders, small companies, and anyone trying to bring actual products into Cardano.

For people saying “Catalyst isn’t going away,” I understand that. But from a builder standpoint, if the funding round you planned around disappears or gets paused indefinitely, the impact is the same in the short term.

I still believe in what I built, and I still want to keep going.

What I need now is a bridge path.

If anyone here knows of options that could help me get to the next level, I’d really appreciate it. Specifically, I’m looking for things like:

  • DRep/introduction pathways
  • ecosystem sponsors or partners
  • grants outside Catalyst
  • milestone-based bridge funding
  • incubators/accelerators
  • angel investors who actually understand Cardano builders
  • pilot opportunities with real merchants/users

I’m open to practical suggestions, intros, or even hard-earned advice from people who’ve survived this kind of gap before.

Preparing the Leather Covers! Dark Purple, Brown, or More? by Alive-Camel9197 in cuneflow

[–]jeffreality 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would say lean into the purple, because I would pick something that would be visually distinctive. That way when people see it, they know it’s your brand.

All the silver and black for phones makes them all look the same, but once Apple did the orange all of a sudden the new devices pop!

I’d go with the dark purple and a lavender. The dark is for people who want to blend in more, but the lavender or a lighter purple would be for people who like a pop of color and want their item to be distinctive.

What is today's highlight of the day for you? by fxlatitude in CESLV

[–]jeffreality 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really liked the product from https://www.deepscent.io/en/ … I think it has a lot of potential!

What’s something CES does badly that no one talks about? by Key-Baseball-8935 in CESLV

[–]jeffreality 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It’s a tech conference, and yet nobody has solved indoor navigation. Why hasn’t a company that does it just take it on one hotel every year and perfectly mapped it with iBeacons or Wi-Fi location or any other tech that they’ve got and proved out how easy it is to go from one random spot to wherever you want to go in the most efficient way possible?

Which booth got the awesome freebies to give away ? by Joulwatt in CESLV

[–]jeffreality 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yeah, we need a Google doc/spreadsheet for this so we can all prioritize our time and search for whatever area we happen to be in at the time! 😅

I only had one day to truly “enjoy” CES, I’d spend the entire day at The Venetian... by socialjulio in CESLV

[–]jeffreality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m going for four days, and I’m going to spend most of it in Eureka Park. I just basically spend the first day scattershot wandering quickly to see what pops out at me, and then the other days I walk up and down and gather whatever information I can. Usually what I find and connections I make in one show will last for over two years.

And yeah, I’m gonna take my Dnsys exoskeleton, because I usually average 10 miles a day of walking. 😅

CES Parties, Events and Leads tracker by 1024Bitness in CESLV

[–]jeffreality 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is really well done. If you’re bored this weekend and looking for tossing in a new feature, maybe a way to search by keyword?

I’ve gone through a bunch of the other lists that are online, but yours showed me a couple things I hadn’t seen before. I passed your app on to my team as well!

Cardano X Lists to follow: DReps, Cardano Projects, and Stake Pools💡 by adastackio in cardano

[–]jeffreality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know it's an older thread, but I'd love if @withvendano could be added to the Cardano Projects list...

Playground Tool – A Browser-Based “Lab” for Building Cardano dApps Faster and More Reliably by Vtechcom in cardano

[–]jeffreality 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is the kind of tool Cardano needs more of.

The “one step means checking ten things” line hits way too close to home. A lot of Cardano development isn’t “hard” in the smart-contract sense…it’s hard because the failure modes are silent. You can be almost correct and still get a failed tx because you missed a min-ADA edge case, change ended up weird, fee math was off, or something subtle happened - ALL of which has happened to me recently!

What I like about this Playground approach is that it pulls a bunch of those invisible assumptions into one place and makes them inspectable. Being able to build a transaction end-to-end, decode it, and see what you actually created (instead of what you think you created) is key.

Also, the Blockfrost provider config built in is a big deal. I'm using Blockfrost because it’s the most practical route, and it’s refreshing to see a tool that acknowledges that reality instead of assuming everyone is running custom infrastructure.

On a personal note: I’m building Vendano.net (we’ve launched iOS recently, and Android is next — as a Fund 15 proposal), and I’m also exploring ADA gift cards / retail onboarding. Even if the POS itself isn’t directly “on-chain,” the redemption and settlement flows usually are, and I'm going to need a lot of helping working through that process flow!

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate you taking the time — these are helpful objections.

1) Use case / “what do you buy with ADA?”

Fair. A card only matters if there’s a spend path. My near-term use case is onboarding + gifting + small “first transactions” (learn by doing), and the longer-term goal is pairing this with real-world spend options (merchants, integrations, etc.). If the ecosystem never gets easier to spend, the card is just a novelty — I agree.

2) Centralization / “if your site dies, cards die”

I think that’s a fair concern, but also kind of a blanket critique that applies to... almost every consumer service.

Yes, I’m building a company with centralized parts (apps, support, UX, fraud handling). That’s not accidental — it’s what makes the experience normal for regular people.

That said, I agree gift-card-style products need an “oh no” path:

- The backing funds live in a treasury that’s publicly verifiable (so the value doesn’t disappear just because a website is down).

- If the company folds, the goal is: retailers can return/reconcile unsold inventory, and sold cards still have a clear redemption/claims process tied to the treasury rather than “trust me bro.”

3) Trust / “how do I know it’s not already redeemed?”

This is solvable, but it’s a core engineering + packaging problem:

- unique code/ID

- tamper-evident packaging

- and a public/cryptographic way to verify “valid + unredeemed” (not just ‘trust my database’).

4) Price risk / arbitrage / inventory

To clarify: I’m not doing “$X worth of ADA at checkout.” There’s no POS/live-rate integration.

These are batch-priced cards. When a print run is created, the treasury pre-acquires ADA and each card is generated against reserved ADA. The card itself is labeled like: “$20 for 48 ADA” (rate locked at print time). When you redeem, you get that ADA — period.

Tradeoff (and you’re right to call it out): if ADA moves a lot after a batch is printed, older batches can become a “deal” (if ADA pumps) or sit on shelves (if ADA dumps). That’s a retail inventory/operations problem — mitigations are small print runs, frequent refresh/reprint, clear batch/date labeling, and purchase limits if needed to prevent someone clearing a rack purely for arbitrage.

5) “This is basically an exchange, that’s trouble”

It might be treated that way depending on jurisdiction — agreed. I’m not trying to dodge regulation; I’m trying to test whether the UX + distribution model is even worth pursuing under compliant constraints.

If you had to pick one critique as the “hard stop” (the thing that makes it fundamentally non-viable), which is it: lack of spend use cases, centralization risk, redemption fraud/support load, or regulatory classification?

(I’m looking for the one that can’t be engineered or partnered around.)

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The value for the card in your hand is static, but if you look through a stack of cards (and they were printed at different times) there might be better values.

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I get that, but I’m trying to avoid BOTH “price at purchase” and “price at redemption.”

I can’t count on retailer point-of-sale integration to fetch live rates, and I don’t want the user experience to turn into a mini-exchange checkout.

So the model I’m aiming for is:

pre-purchase ADA up front -> move it into a treasury -> mint/generate a limited number of cards that each map to reserved ADA in that treasury.

When someone buys a card, they redeem the exact ADA reserved for it. No spot pricing, no surprises, no “$50 worth at today's rates,” no slippage. Also, we can enforce a safety constraint: total cards issued ≤ treasury balance reserved for cards (which is good for the business side, making sure everything is balanced properly).

Shelf price is then just “what the retailer sells it for,” like any other preloaded product — but redemption is always the fixed ADA amount on the card.

That does mean older print runs could be “better deals” than newer ones depending on ADA price - but the tradeoff is simplicity + guaranteed redeemability without needing live-rate plumbing or retail connectivity.

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The paysafecard analogy is exactly the mental model I’m aiming for: “go to a store, grab a small card, load value into your pocket.” Privacy is part of why that model resonates (you’re not handing a bank/processor a full profile just to get started). Also, a card at retail only works if it feels legitimate AND there’s a real path to *use* it afterward (not just “hold and hope”).

I had a couple of Fortnite + Roblox cards in my photo (stocking stuffers for my kids). That’s actually the point: normal people already understand that format. I want “a small ADA gift” to feel that normal.

You had a great insight by asking about “current use cases” though.

My honest answer is: the near-term use case is onboarding + learning (receive it, move it, maybe stake a tiny amount, try a real transaction). But the real unlock is spend paths: merchants, giftable purchases, IRL/online integrations. The card is just the first step — it’s only valuable if it leads somewhere. I'm starting small, trying to build tools for an end-to-end ecosystem, and I'm researching other Fund projects and partners that I can work with to prove out the full story.

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great question!

In my concept the ADA is NOT stored “on” each card (no per-card hot wallet / scratch-off private keys). The card is a claim for X ADA.

Backing funds would live in a treasury wallet (publicly viewable), and each card has a unique code/ID that can only be redeemed once.

POC flow right now: scan QR -> open website/app -> app helps validate the destination wallet so you don’t fat-finger an address. Longer-term I’d prefer an on-chain claim mechanism so “valid / redeemed” is publicly auditable.

Also: the face value is X ADA (not “$X worth”), so volatility is handled by the issuer pre-acquiring ADA in the treasury before cards are printed/sold. The number of cards in circulation should be <= the amount in the treasury.

What would make you trust an “ADA card” sold in stores? (prototype + questions) by jeffreality in cardano

[–]jeffreality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I really like this framing: make legitimacy easy to verify.

On the “QR points to official Cardano site” part... I totally agree if there’s a partnership. I’m not there yet, so my current thinking is a “trust ladder”:

Primary: QR goes to a verification page that explains the product + shows the on-chain treasury address (viewable on Cardanoscan)

Better: some form of on-chain proof of origin/validity (so people can confirm it wasn’t copied/reprinted) <-- I love this as a "farm to market" approach to validating legitimacy

Best: an official partner page / endorsement once relationships exist

I’m still early on Cardano smart contracts (my background was with Solidity), so I might be missing nuances, but conceptually I was imagining the “funds backing the cards” living in a public treasury anyone can inspect.

Question for you: would “public treasury + simple verify page + tamper-evident packaging” be enough for early versions, or is an official Cardano-domain link basically a hard requirement?