When I invest, I like to compare what I buy with iconic projects that got successful in the past. Since I’ve started to invest in Cardano, it seems more and more obvious to me that I’m buying an Apple-like. It all started with some details that I’ve noticed here and there but now I have a list of them. In fact, everyday the common points become more and more obvious to me: I invest in Cardano like I invest in Apple.
1. A leader focusing on the vision
Steve Jobs in 1992:
I quote:
“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world; it’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us. Now, Apple fortunately is one of the half-a-dozen best brands in the whole world.”
Charles Hoskinson, 2021:
I quote:
“I tell you about the vision, the mission, the goal. It’s not my job to make a day trader rich. It is a rare moment in human history where we are building systems that have the potential to unify all human kind together. There is nothing else I can do in life that is more meaningful. It might take a decade, it might take two decades and we’re all in this journey together. It’s about changing everything: the definition of money, securities, properties, identity, voting, all those things.”
Do you reckon there is a similarity?
2. A very divisive product based on bold fundamentals
Also, Apple is a company people love or hate and this is the signature of disruption. Apple made bold choices in terms of pricing, in term of OS, in terms of technical standards making it absolutely hated by some. Make no mistake, when hate is so present around a product and a man, it means that the thing matters: it’s the approval of the gods.
Want some violence? Here you go:
Likewise, Cardano is also very much criticised: too slow to develop features, not enough DEXs, difficult to learn for core developers because of the language (Haskell) used, and many other attacks. Some of them are very much running jokes like the fact that Cardano would be a “ghost chain”. Here as well, when a chain triggers this amount of hate, there is something to dig.
3. A divorce leading to a stronger product
It’s really interesting to draw a parallel between the Jobs-Wozniak divorce and the Buterin-Hoskinson divorce. It’s the same thing.
Jobs was annoyed at the Apple 2 lead by Wozniak. Too open, less secure, no clarity, no vision. As a consequence, he decided to rebuild Apple entirely and came up with the Macintosh.
Alternatively, if you look at the Buterin-Hoskinson divorce, it’s all about lack of governance and security… Basically the same thing!
Cardano was born.
In fact, I like to think of those events as turning points in the history of both personal computers and blockchains. Can you really create a revolution if you don’t take your distance with the admitted consensus at the time?
4. An Irrational Price Action
Apple between 1980 and 1990:
Also, Cardano between 2019 and 2022:
Rings a bell?
The boom and burst pattern (common in crypto but even more visible on the price action of Cardano) is a classic when people are really emotional about an asset. Eventually, when things become irrational and retail buy without thinking it tells you something about the underlying asset.
5. Conclusion
To conclude, I invest in Cardano like I invest in Apple. The product is divisive and bold, the leader has a strong vision, the price action is all over the place and the stories of the leaders are symmetrical. Sometimes it’s important to understand that you don’t buy a token because of what it does at a given point in time but because of what’s coded in its DNA.
Thanks for reading.
n.b: this is not financial advice