Learn Cardano Podcast

This Cardano news update covers the biggest Token2049 Singapore takeaways and the follow-up announcements now landing across the ecosystem. Peter starts with the latest Ledger and Trezor supply-chain concerns, then moves into Cardano's programmable token standard, Midnight's role in private and compliant transactions, and the growing institutional story around Veridian ID and Fireblocks.

The episode also breaks down the Cardano Foundation booth, UTXO Pitch Night with Draper Dragon, the Origins Hackathon results, and why the number of teams building on Cardano rails was a strong signal from the event. From there, Peter covers Minswap and Fluid Tokens, Cardano's...

Peter breaks down the latest Midnight ecosystem updates from Token2049 and the wider Asia tour, starting with permissionless smart contract deployment on mainnet and the sharp rise in network activity that followed. He also covers Solana wallet support for private DeFi, NIGHT access through OKJ in Japan, and Fahmi Syed’s collateral warehouse example for private but compliant trading infrastructure.

The episode also looks at the community and builder side of Midnight: ambassador activity at Token2049, Charles Hoskinson’s Midnight City presentation, AI agents hiring humans to walk the conference floor, the Tokyo activation, and the startup pitches buil...

Ledger has confirmed that one impacted user's device contained an unauthorized hardware implant as part of an investigation into reports of lost funds from users in South East Asia who purchased through reseller CryptoBilis.

Peter breaks down what has been reported, why buying hardware wallets through trusted channels matters, how phishing emails still target Ledger users, and what crypto holders can check when reviewing their own custody setup.

Chapters:
0:00 Ledger security warning
0:52 Buy from trusted sources
1:36 Reported losses and reseller risk
2:25 Suspicious implant hardware
3:11 Checking your Ledger device
3:52 Phishing emails...

Lava is building a liquid staking protocol for Cardano that lets ADA holders deposit ADA, mint the LADA receipt token, and keep staking exposure while using DeFi. In this interview, Peter speaks with Nick Milne about why Cardano native staking is already liquid, what changes when that ADA moves into DeFi, and how Lava aims to stack staking yield with on-chain strategies.

They also discuss Atrium delegation, LADA as a Cardano native token, DEX and stablecoin liquidity, lending collateral, regulatory and tax friction, vault infrastructure, looping strategies, and what Nick learned from the Draper University program.

...

Australian crypto tax can get messy fast. In this episode, Peter speaks with Matthew from Summ, formerly Crypto Tax Calculator, about what actually triggers a taxable event, how the ATO views staking, airdrops, NFTs, DeFi, wrapping, liquidity pools, scams and lost wallets, and why good records matter before the ATO comes knocking.

They also dig into how much visibility the ATO already has through exchange reporting and on-chain activity, what CARF could change for offshore exchanges, how the travel rule affects normal users, and why Summ is expanding beyond crypto into broader investment tax reporting.

Chapters:<...

The ATO is chasing Australian small businesses over unpaid and late superannuation, with automated checks looking back as far as 2021 and some owners receiving letters for interest, penalties and Super Guarantee Charge amounts. The issue is not just whether super should be paid; it is how the ATO counts when it was paid, especially when clearing houses and fund processing times create delays between money leaving the business and landing in the employee's super account.

Peter breaks down the Hughesy example, the 10% nominal interest under the Super Guarantee Charge, the coming Payday Super rules from 1 July 2026, and why...

CIP-113 has been merged into the Cardano CIPs repository, moving Cardano closer to a standard for programmable token-like assets.

In this video I break down what programmable tokens are, why they matter for real-world assets, stablecoins and tokenized securities, and how projects could use transfer rules, KYC allowlists, freeze/seize actions and issuer controls without turning every implementation into a custom one-off.

This does not mean every wallet and dApp supports CIP-113 today. It means the proposed standard has taken a major step forward, and now builders, wallets, custodians and projects can start aligning around the...

Australia's crypto rules are changing. AUSTRAC already requires many crypto service providers to register for anti-money laundering and financial crime oversight, while ASIC is pushing affected digital asset businesses into Australia's financial services licensing regime.

In this episode, Peter breaks down the difference between AUSTRAC registration and an Australian Financial Services Licence, what ASIC's 30 September 2026 transition deadline means, and why the bigger Digital Asset Platform framework starting in April 2027 is focused heavily on custody.

The key message for Australian crypto holders is simple: you do not need a licence to own Bitcoin, ADA or other crypto...

Cardano and Midnight had a packed week heading into Token2049, with practical updates across builder funding, stake pools, wallet recovery, developer tooling, payments, privacy apps and enterprise custody. Peter covers the Alpha Growth RFP, EMURGO stake pool handover, SecondFi recovery status, Max Weber's Cardano and Midnight API work, Chatsoon testing, Noctis launches, Midnight events in Singapore, Barça Fan Lab, Fireblocks support for Cardano Native Tokens, Catalyst Pilot 2026 and the latest Cardano Venture Hub cohort.

The episode focuses on what these updates mean for builders and users: where affected SecondFi wallet users stand, why unified Cardano and Midnight A...

Cardano turns nine, and this episode is a short personal reflection on how far the blockchain and its community have come since mainnet first started producing blocks. Peter looks back at the work early stake pool operators and developers put in, and how that foundation made it easier for later builders, educators, and SPOs to join the ecosystem.

Chapters:
0:00 Cardano Turns Nine
0:23 Five Years In Cardano
0:47 From SPO To Ambassador
1:28 Cardano Changed My Life
1:40 Scaling And DeFi Ahead
2:03 Building Investable Apps
2:23 Many More Years

What you'll learn:
...

ChatterPay is bringing ADA payments into a place billions of people already use: WhatsApp. In this Draper University interview, Peter talks with Tomas from ChatterPay about how the team moved from hackathon prototypes to Cardano mainnet, why the app has caught attention across the Cardano community, and how users can send ADA and supported stablecoins with a simple text or voice message.

Chapters:
0:00 ChatterPay Goes Viral
1:10 Meet Tomas
1:51 Hackathon Origins
4:30 Cardano Mainnet Launch
5:34 Why WhatsApp Payments Matter
7:13 Regulation And Roadblocks
8:55 Fintech Partner Strategy
10:54 Cardano User Roadmap
12:06 Draper University Lessons<...

After four weeks at Draper University in Silicon Valley, the original startup idea changed completely. Peter went into the first Cardano Genesis program thinking about a Web3 bounty platform and came out with a much clearer founder mindset, a sharper view of market size, and a new direction for Moshi Concepts and Hokan.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:25 Cardano Genesis Program
2:45 Market Size Reality Check
4:43 Pitching And Validation
6:13 From Bounties To Escrow
8:40 Rehearsing The Pitch
11:29 Pitching Tim Draper
13:55 Catalyst And Treasury Use
16:16 Trust And Security
18:59 Go To Market Lessons
24:48 Stablecoin...

This Cardano news update covers a difficult run of ecosystem security incidents alongside several important signs of progress. Peter walks through the compromised IOG YouTube channel, the SecondFi recovery process, the Splash ADA/OADA breach, and why better security practices still matter for users and builders.

The episode then shifts into the constructive side of the update: Cardano Foundation joining Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program, Midgard Labs taking over Plutus engineering, Bifrost testing with SPOs, browser-based Cardano node work, x402 support for Cardano payments, AlphaGrowth’s PRIME RFPs, DraperU reflections, and upcoming TOKEN2049 events.

Chapters:
0:00 Intr...

The introduction of AUSTRAC's travel rule has significant implications for cryptocurrency transactions in Australia. From 1 July, AUSTRAC's travel rule means that all transactions through regulated exchanges require identifying information from both the sender and receiver, regardless of the amount. This creates challenges for individuals like Troy Hunt, who faced difficulties when a small crypto donation required extensive reporting, highlighting the complexities of compliance in the current landscape.

In this episode, Peter sits down with Mena, the CEO of CoinStash, to discuss the nuances of the travel rule and its impact on users engaging in staking and crypto transactions...

The episode highlights the launch of the Web3 Bounty platform, a new initiative aimed at attracting talent and projects to the Cardano ecosystem. This platform, inspired by successful models in other ecosystems, seeks to incentivise community members to participate in various tasks, from content creation to bug reporting, thereby enhancing engagement and development within Cardano. With the backing of the $80 million Orion Fund and participation in the Draper Dragon Genesis program, this initiative is timely and crucial for fostering growth in the Cardano community.

Peter breaks down the concept behind the Web3 Bounty platform, sharing insights from his...

The Australian government is exploring the use of superannuation funds for local investment, sparking significant debate about the future of retirement savings. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has suggested that instead of investing heavily overseas, these funds could be directed towards Australian infrastructure and projects, which could potentially benefit the economy. This shift raises concerns about the government's role in managing private retirement funds and the implications for individual investors.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:08 Australian Superannuation Overview
10:28 Investment in Local Projects
19:40 National Recovery Fund Explained
25:48 Concerns from Financial Experts
32:29 Government's Role in Superannuation
41:00 Future...

SecondFi has released more detail on the wallet security incident that saw about 16.1 million ADA, roughly US$2.6 million, withdrawn from 374 wallets between 21 and 23 June. The update includes a public warning about fake recovery emails, findings from Groom Lake's forensic investigation, and a clearer explanation of the cryptographic flaw involved.

Peter breaks down what SecondFi says happened, including the reported external attacker, the possibility of a second separate attacker, the per-transaction signature issue, and why public transaction data may have been enough to derive affected private key material under certain conditions. The episode also covers the wider discussion around...

OpenAI's sandbox escape into Hugging Face has raised a bigger question for crypto security: what happens when autonomous AI systems can chain together the same probing, credential testing, package attacks and signing weaknesses that already threaten bridges, validators and project infrastructure?

Peter breaks down why crypto attacks often start before funds move, using recent bridge exploits, the Wanchain Cardano-BNB incident, the repeated Verus bridge attacks and Rosen Bridge's blocked attempts as examples of how attackers hunt for weak points beyond smart contracts. The episode also explains why Cardano security work, responsible disclosure and access to frontier-model auditing programmes...

A developing Wanchain bridge incident appears to have moved 515 million bridged NIGHT tokens into the Cardano ecosystem, with rapid selling across Cardano DEXs and a sharp fall in the NIGHT price.

Peter walks through the early on-chain analysis, the Midnight Foundation's warning, why this appears localised to bridge infrastructure rather than Midnight or Cardano itself, and why bridge risk remains one of crypto's biggest attack surfaces.

Chapters:
0:00 Wanchain Bridge Anomaly
1:13 NIGHT Price Drop
1:56 Midnight's Official Warning
3:02 Who Is Affected
3:33 515M NIGHT Movement
4:40 On-Chain Flow
5:42 DEX Selling And Exits
6:13...

This Cardano ADA news update starts with the Linux Foundation's x402 Foundation and the rise of internet-native AI agent payments. Cardano is listed through the Cardano Foundation, but the membership tier raises a bigger question: is Cardano shaping the standard, or just appearing beside it?

Peter then connects that x402 story to Masumi, Hydra, DeltaDeFi, SBI's move with Solana in Japan, AlphaGrowth, Blockfrost, and the upcoming Van Rossum hard fork. The core theme is simple: Cardano has serious technology, but the ecosystem needs stronger business development, marketing, liquidity, and user adoption if those projects are going to survive...

Peter walks through the SecondFi security incident from the perspective of checking whether a Cardano wallet may have been affected, including the official SecondFi wallet checker, support resources, and exposure checks.

This video focuses on practical safety steps: how to verify affected wallets, why you should be cautious before signing transactions from a potentially compromised wallet, and where to follow official SecondFi, Yoroi, and Lace updates.

Chapters:
0:00 SecondFi security incident
2:30 What happened and why it matters
5:00 Checking affected wallets
8:00 Where to get official support
11:00 Wallet exposure and next steps
14:00 Lace...

Australia's High Court has ruled that Block Earner's old Earner product was a financial product, giving crypto earn, yield and rewards providers a much clearer legal line to deal with. The episode explains why the ruling matters for Australian crypto users, why it does not mean crypto itself has been banned, and why products that promise passive returns may now need the right licences before operating in Australia.

Peter breaks down how Block Earner's Earner product worked, why the court compared it to a bank-style deposit product, and what changed after all seven High Court judges agreed the...

This week's Cardano news update covers AlphaGrowth's Cardano PRIME proposal going live on-chain, including the 120 million ada ask, the net change limit debate, and why DeFi growth is becoming a major treasury conversation.

Peter also looks at Ethereum researchers discussing native UTXOs, RealFi entering testnet with a real-world finance model, the latest SecondFi wallet recovery guidance, and EMURGO stepping down from the Pentad while it focuses on the SecondFi recovery process.

Chapters:
0:00 Weekly Cardano Roundup
0:41 AlphaGrowth Cardano PRIME
3:19 DRep Voting Begins
4:36 The 120M ADA Ask
5:17 Net Change Limit
7:40 Ethereum Looks...

We have another major update from SecondFi around the hack and also the recovery of all the funds for users that have been affected. So let's get right into this one here.


What you’ll learn:
• We have another major update from SecondFi around the hack and also the recovery of all the funds for users that have been affected.
• This is the official statement from EMURGO at the moment around the SecondFi incident.
• Now, I'll go through this summary really quickly for you guys to get to the point.
• They've engaged multiple different...

Your staking rewards are being taxed twice.

When you receive staking rewards (ADA, ETH, SOL, etc.), the ATO treats them as ordinary income at the point you receive them. Then, when you later sell or dispose of those assets, you pay capital gains tax on the profit.

In this episode, we break down exactly how the ATO views staking rewards, airdrops, and DeFi transactions, why many people are only reporting half the story, and what the new 2027 CGT rules will change.

We also cover:
- How the ATO’s data matching program works

In this Cardano ADA news update, Peter covers the latest SecondFi recovery steps after the Yoroi/SecondFi wallet incident, including the asset recovery checker, support ticket process, hardware wallet migration guidance, and the temporary pause on Midnight Glacier Drop redemptions.

The episode also looks at Open USD, Brale, and the Cardano Foundation's pathway into the new stablecoin standard, plus the upcoming Catalyst pilot around stablecoins, programmable tokens, and on-chain identity. From there, Peter digs into Cardano's DeFi activity problem, treasury funding debates, the proposed 500 million ADA net change limit, Cardano Prime, and why DRep delegation matters for the...

Australia's capital gains tax rules are changing from 1 July 2027, and the shift could matter for anyone holding crypto, shares, property or other investment assets. In this episode, Peter walks through what is changing, why the government is making the change, and how the move from the 50% CGT discount to indexation plus a 30% minimum tax floor may affect Australian crypto investors.

The episode covers the current CGT treatment for crypto, how long-term holders currently access the 50% discount, what the new indexation model is designed to do, and why the transition period could create messy gain-splitting calculations for assets held...

Update on the SecondFi wallet exposure situation, including the latest official response, wallet safety guidance, recovery options, and the community tools being used to check whether a Cardano wallet may have been exposed.

Key takeaways:
- SecondFi says affected wallets should be treated as permanently compromised.
- Hardware wallets were not exposed in the same way as the affected hot-wallet flow.
- Users should avoid panic-moving funds from compromised wallets without understanding reward, staking, and native asset edge cases.
- SecondFi support is collecting affected-user details through its official support portal.
- Community...

Peter breaks down the latest SecondFi incident updates, why the issue was not a Cardano protocol hack, what affected users should avoid doing, how the white-hat recovery appears to have protected most funds, and why hardware wallets matter.

Key Takeaways:
- SecondFi says the security risk is at the address level and affected users should not restore their recovery phrase into another Cardano wallet.
- The incident appears tied to vulnerable wallet key generation rather than a Cardano protocol-level hack.
- SecondFi reported that external threat actors drained about 16 million ADA, while emergency white-hat measures...

Peter interviews Bryan Colligan and Eric Waisanen from AlphaGrowth about the Cardano Prime proposal, the missing DeFi infrastructure on Cardano, how liquidity incentives could work, and what transparency the community should expect before treasury funds are committed.

Key Takeaways:
- AlphaGrowth says its Cardano Prime work would begin with a deep audit of Cardano DeFi infrastructure, applications, and liquidity gaps.
- The team argues Cardano needs coordinated DeFi primitives, including stablecoin liquidity, money markets, DEX depth, bridges, and oracle infrastructure.
- AlphaGrowth points to prior work with ecosystems such as Compound as evidence of its...

This Cardano news update covers several important ecosystem developments: a public warning around reported SecondFi wallet-drain activity, IOG's new Block 45 media push, Orion Fund and Draper/Cometa activity, and AlphaGrowth's PRIME programme for Cardano DeFi.

Peter also looks at practical DeFi infrastructure updates across Dano Finance, Fetch, Surge, Pyth Pro, and the van Rossem hard fork. The episode focuses on what builders, users, and stake pool operators should be watching as Cardano moves toward Leios and the next scaling era.

This content is for education and ecosystem commentary only, not financial advice.

Key Takeaways:<...

Australia's High Court is being asked to consider a deceptively simple question with huge consequences: is crypto property, or merely information controlled by private keys?

In this episode, Peter breaks down Poulton v Conrad, a dispute that began with Bitcoin purchased in 2013 and has grown into a major legal test for digital assets in Australia. The case raises questions about possession, control, conversion, taxation, custody, insurance, and what legal protection crypto holders actually have if assets are withheld, misappropriated, or stolen.

This is not legal or financial advice. It is an educational discussion of the case...

Australia's crypto Travel Rule starts on 1 July 2026, and it is already changing how Aussies move Bitcoin and other crypto off exchanges. In this episode, Peter breaks down what AUSTRAC's rule actually requires, why exchanges are adding extra verification, and what it could mean for withdrawals, deposits, cold storage, and financial privacy.

The key point is not that every blockchain transaction suddenly has your name written on-chain. The rule applies to regulated businesses such as exchanges, banks, remittance providers, and other virtual asset service providers. But if you move assets between an exchange and a self-custody wallet, expect more...

NuNet is building a decentralised compute and orchestration network where people can contribute spare CPU, GPU, RAM and other resources, while developers and organisations can deploy workloads across available infrastructure. In this episode, Peter talks with Jennifer from NuNet about the new NuNet Appliance and why it matters for making decentralised compute more practical for everyday users.

The conversation covers how NuNet matches the right compute to the right job, how the Appliance lowers the barrier to onboarding devices, and why use cases like n8n automations, private AI agents, edge AI, Cardano SPO infrastructure and web deployment...

Peras is one of the most important Cardano upgrades to understand if you care about real user experience, not just theoretical throughput. In this episode, Peter breaks down what finality actually means on Cardano, why transactions can look complete long before they are deeply settled, and how that affects people moving assets across chains.

The episode focuses on two practical examples: the USDCX bridge between Ethereum and Cardano, and the Midnight canonical bridge. Both highlight the same pain point. When finality takes too long, bridging becomes slow, awkward and hard to trust. Peras aims to shorten that wait...

Cardano Foundation has partnered with the Brazilian Olympic Committee on a three-year roadmap focused on sports innovation, and this episode breaks down why that matters beyond the headline. Peter walks through the practical use cases being discussed, including digital identity, certification, fan engagement, equipment tracking, and on-chain governance.

Rather than treating this as vague adoption theatre, the episode looks at where blockchain may genuinely fit within sporting institutions, especially when legacy systems are fragmented, paper-based, or difficult to audit. It is an early-stage pilot, but it offers a concrete example of how public blockchain infrastructure could be tested...

Peter explains why he is stepping down as a Cardano DRep and why, in his view, the current governance process is not working well enough to justify the time, energy, and scrutiny it demands. He walks through the practical reasons behind that decision, including lobbying for votes, unclear conflict-of-interest boundaries, public backlash, fatigue, and the growing burden of proposal review.

The episode also looks at the broader governance environment around Intersect, treasury withdrawals, and the post-Catalyst landscape. Rather than writing off governance entirely, Peter argues that Cardano's model still has room to improve, but that most people are...

Peter digs into Trivolve Tech's forensic management system after it passed 100,000 on-chain transactions on Cardano mainnet. The episode looks at what the milestone actually represents, how the evidence workflow appears to use hashing and zero-knowledge proofs, and why it stands out as a live government-style deployment rather than another proof of concept.

Peter also connects the project to Trivolve Tech's broader work in India, including IndianChain and land-record infrastructure tied to millions of farmers and millions of acres. The result is a grounded look at how Cardano is being used for chain-of-custody records, tamper detection, and large-scale public-sector...

In this episode, Peter sits down with Bartek from BikeID to unpack how bicycles can be given a persistent digital identity that follows them through manufacturing, retail, ownership, servicing and resale. The conversation covers why the bike industry still lacks a common identification standard, how BikeID uses NFC and RFID tags as the physical interface, and why blockchain helps remove the need for a central authority to validate the record.

They also dig into the commercial reality behind bringing this on-chain. Bartek explains how BikeID is thinking about scale, why not every event should land directly on Cardano...

Zcash's Orchard vulnerability has reignited one of the most important conversations in crypto: why formal verification and high-assurance engineering matter when real value is at stake. In this episode, Peter breaks down what the disclosed Zcash flaw could have allowed, why privacy systems create a harder audit problem, and why this story reached far beyond one chain.

The discussion then turns to Cardano's long-standing security-first philosophy and why that mindset matters even more for privacy-preserving infrastructure. Peter also explains how Midnight fits into this picture as a privacy layer designed around formal methods, selective disclosure, and secure integration...