A word from Michael Steuer, CTO at the Casper Association
Hi Casper Fam - I know that these are tense times in our community. When
Casper Labs first announced their Prove AI product 5 months ago, we all shared in the excitement that it would be build against Casper Network and join the family of apps running on our blockchain. When it became official that they wouldn’t earlier this week, by way of the news of Prove AI entering into a partnership agreement with hedera, we all shared in equal disappointment. However, since any company and project is free to choose which platform they build on, we at Casper Association wished Prove AI and Hedera well in their new partnership, and refocused on our primary mission - the development of the Casper Network, the protocol, the technology and supporting the ecosystem that is built, and building, on top of it. Our core engineering team is hard at work on wrapping up the work on Casper 2.0, and expects to cut Release Candidate 5 next week, which is feature complete and going into full testing - both internally as well as with downstream stakeholders. We are working closely with our validator community on preparing for the upgrade (
https://casper.network/news/validator-connect-call-recap-oct24), and with our growing community of DeFi app developers on rapidly expanding both the capabilities of our DeFi ecosystem, as well as the product offering on top of that (
https://casper.network/news/insights-from-the-first-casper-defi-working-group-call). We have a good number of exciting launches forthcoming in the next weeks and months, including with new partners who have not previously built on Casper. And, we are implementing our roadmap to decentralization, by restructuring the way the Casper Association will be governed in the future and empowering the $CSPR community (
https://casper.network/news/casper-association-announces-board-transition-and-new-community-centered-vision), and by decentralizing the team that’s working on core engineering to include outside experts from reputable companies and projects. While obviously many people were looking forward to having the recently announced Prove AI product also launch on Casper Network, one app cannot ever be the sole pillar that a network rests on. Our aim is to be a fundamental blockchain network for as many apps as possible, both in the enterprise space as well as in the retail/DeFi/mass-market spaces. That’s the direction the collective noses of the Casper core team are pointed in, and the objective we’re executing against.
Then there’s another thing I want to address: there is a lot of anger directed at Mrinal Manohar personally, and much of it goes way beyond the pale. While frustration over the fact that Prove AI was originally announced to be built on Casper Network and ultimately is going to another network is understandable (and I also share), it is not acceptable to make personal threats, in many cases of physical violence, or to digitally target individuals such as Mrinal with online abuse. Just like all of us, he is a human being, with a family, and as a professional with a responsibility to the company he’s at the helm of, and to its shareholders. His for-profit company was offered a commercial business deal that was too good to pass up, and the board of directors of that company agreed to enter into that business arrangement. These things happen all the time, in all business environments. Obviously having to walk back a prior statement about which network their product was going to launch on, is a painful one to have to deliver, and a painful one for all of us to receive. But that cannot be an excuse for threats to someone’s or their family’s life. I kindly but strongly request that this stops, immediately.
And I invite you all to engage with me and the entire Casper Network team and community on all things
#Casper. That is a much more exciting, productive and positively charged use of our collective time. Let's BUILD!
