Deepak Mookram🇹🇹

I've been seeing a lot of negativity around $CC lately. The price, Featured App rewards, what Super Validators are receiving, the marketing and the delays. I get it. Nobody enjoys watching something they hold lose value, especially when they see others earning significant amounts of CC. Most of my crypto holdings are in CC. But I think some perspective is needed. Starting with Featured Apps, yes, the rewards can be generous. But there are requirements attached, including locking 5 million CC for non issuers or 25 million CC for asset issuers. Then there's the work of building and running the product. Developers, infrastructure, support and ongoing improvements. I don't know what every team has spent, but none of that is free. The rewards aren't the same for every project either. Featured App status doesn't automatically mean collecting millions of CC. The product a team builds and the qualifying network activity it generates matter. If someone builds something useful, attracts users and contributes meaningful activity to Canton, I have no issue with them being rewarded. There are already over 100 apps participating in the Featured App rewards system, and I expect that number to grow significantly over the coming years. As more apps gain Featured App status and attract activity, I expect competition for those rewards to increase, with more projects earning a share. That doesn't mean every app will earn an equal amount, but I don't expect today's distribution to stay the same as the ecosystem grows. Some of the people who built early are benefiting from being early. That's true, and I don't see that as a bad thing. They put time and resources into building something before knowing how it would turn out. Does that mean every reward is justified or nothing needs adjusting? Of course not. But earning substantial rewards doesn't automatically mean a project is doing something wrong either. Super Validators also have responsibilities and commitments to meet. Some of their reward allocations depend on milestones and contributions to the network. Not everything they do is necessarily visible to the average CC holder, and some information is confidential. I think that context matters when discussing what they're receiving. And let's be honest about my own experience too. I've been involved since the early days of CC, and there was a period when I earned quite a lot for doing very little. Quite literally. I benefited from that myself. It was great while it lasted, but was that ever going to be sustainable forever? Of course not. I think it's only fair to acknowledge that when talking about rewards going to other people. Another thing I keep coming back to is how young Canton's retail ecosystem still is. People keep comparing Canton to established blockchain ecosystems that have had years to attract developers, build communities, launch applications and work through problems. How much are we realistically expecting in such a short period? I don't expect Canton to have the same depth of applications, tools and communities as ecosystems that have spent years developing them. I want to see progress, but I also want to be realistic about how long this takes. There are new applications, tools and infrastructure being built, and plenty more being worked on in the background. When I see teams spending their time and money building on Canton, that means something to me. Why are all these people choosing to build here? Clearly, they see an opportunity. That doesn't guarantee they'll succeed, but people generally don't invest significant time and resources into something unless they believe there's potential. Canton isn't perfect, and I don't need to pretend it is to remain bullish. There are things that can improve, and some of the criticism is warranted. But I also think Yuval and the wider team deserve credit for the effort they're making. The founders are active, regularly joining livestreams, interviews and discussions, and engaging with people on X. I genuinely think they're doing a good job of making themselves available to the community. Could communication improve in some areas? Absolutely. But I also think it's important to recognise the effort already being made. CIPs are another part of that ongoing improvement. They exist to propose changes, address problems and improve how the network operates. I'd rather see things constantly being reviewed and improved than have anyone pretend everything is already perfect. And I don't expect every timeline to be exact. Sometimes things take longer than planned. I'd rather something be delivered properly than rushed just to hit a date. Yuval has also spoken about doing more for the community, which I think is great. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of that. Again, these things take time. On the investment side, my approach hasn't really changed. I bought Tesla, Amazon and Meta shares early. I wasn't on X complaining about every marketing decision, every mistake or every time the share price dropped. I invested because I believed in those companies and their long term potential. There were ups and downs, periods of uncertainty, bad decisions and times when things weren't looking particularly good. But I had conviction in my investments and was prepared to ride through those periods. Look at Nvidia as another example. Do you think everyone who invested in Nvidia years ago was happy with every single decision the company made? Every mistake, every setback, every drop in the share price? Of course not. Every company makes mistakes. Every company has things it needs to improve. Some make terrible decisions along the way. Why should Canton be any different? Why is every decision, every delay and every price movement scrutinised as though it's the end of the world? Some of that scrutiny is absolutely warranted, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. But let's apply some perspective and hold Canton to reasonable standards, just as we would with any other investment. And before anyone says it, yes, buying shares in an established company is very different from investing in a crypto token. The risks are different, and I'm not suggesting Canton will follow the same path as any of those companies. I'm talking about the mindset behind investing. I want to understand what I'm buying, why I believe in it and what would make me change my mind. I don't want my entire opinion of an investment to depend on whether the price is green or red that week. And right now, the positives I see in Canton far outweigh the negatives. That's my current assessment, and that's why I'm comfortable staying invested. If those reasons no longer hold up, I'll reassess. There's also the speculative side of crypto. Let's be real, a lot of investment in this space is driven by speculation. Hype, narratives and expectations about what something could become, rather than what it has actually achieved. And I don't think Canton has really attracted that same level of speculative interest from retail yet. Will that change? I'd like to think so. As more people discover Canton, more applications launch and the ecosystem continues to grow, hopefully that interest will follow. I'm already seeing Canton mentioned more regularly across X, more people learning about the network and more projects getting involved. Compare that to where things were not so long ago. But I also understand why people are cautious. Nearly everyone in crypto has been burned at some point. People have lost money, invested in projects that promised everything and delivered nothing, and watched entire ecosystems disappear. It takes time to build trust, especially among retail investors who have been through all of that. You can't expect everyone to suddenly discover Canton, trust the network, invest their money and become long term supporters overnight. That trust needs to be earned. And growing awareness doesn't automatically mean the price of CC will go up. Eventually, interest needs to translate into real adoption and sustainable network activity. That's something I want to see develop over time. Most of my crypto holdings are in CC, alongside a few other Canton ecosystem tokens. I'm holding, earning yield and watching how things develop. Of course I want CC to go up. I'm hardly enjoying the dips. But I didn't buy expecting a straight line up, and I'm certainly not expecting a 10x within the next month. I'm more interested in what Canton looks like in two, three or five years than what happens to the chart next week. If you can't handle a price dip, or you're already fed up because your investment hasn't done a 10x, maybe CC isn't the right investment for you. There's always a memecoin being hyped as the next 100x somewhere. I'm not here for a quick flip. I'm taking a longer view and I'm prepared to sit through difficult periods while my reasons for investing still hold up. And this is probably the most important point. If you can't handle losses, or losing money would seriously affect your daily life, be very careful about how much you invest. That applies to stocks and even more so to crypto. As bullish as I am on Canton and CC, even I understand the risks involved. Nothing is guaranteed, and I could be wrong. If you're investing for the long term, you need to be prepared for the ups and downs. If you're trading and looking for quick gains, that's a completely different approach, and CC might not be what you're looking for. What I don't agree with is treating every setback as proof that the whole network has failed, any more than I agree with treating every announcement as proof that CC is about to take off. I can be bullish on Canton and still disagree with decisions being made. I can question rewards, want better communication and still recognise the effort going into the network. I don't think those positions contradict each other. Look at the projects being built, the applications being launched, the institutions involved, the infrastructure being developed and the people spending their time and money trying to grow the ecosystem. There's a lot happening, and much of it takes place without the average CC holder necessarily seeing it. As cliche as it sounds, I genuinely believe we're still early in Canton's development. Not early in the sense that everyone is guaranteed to make money by buying CC today, but early in terms of how much of the ecosystem still needs to be built and how much adoption still needs to happen. There are challenges ahead, things that need improving and plenty that could go wrong. But there's also a lot to be positive about. And I think it's worth explaining why I spend so much time involved with Canton in the first place. The goal with Canton Army and CantonNews has always been to educate people, promote the ecosystem and support the projects building within it. That's what we're here to do. We want to help people understand Canton, discover new projects, learn how things work and stay informed about what's happening across the network. We'll share the information, highlight opportunities and showcase what teams are building. What you choose to do with that information is entirely up to you. We're not here to give financial advice, convince anyone to buy CC or push people into buying other tokens or memecoins. That's never been our goal. We believe in Canton, which is why we dedicate so much time to covering the ecosystem and supporting the people building here. And you won't see us crying on X every time the price drops. Of course we'd prefer the price to be going up, but our long term conviction hasn't changed. We'll continue supporting Canton, helping projects get exposure and growing the community to the best of our ability, regardless of what the chart looks like on any given day. For me, there's enough progress and potential to remain invested, keep building and give the ecosystem time to develop. I don't expect everything to go perfectly, but the positives still heavily outweigh the negatives in my view. And just to be clear, this isn't a post trying to convince anyone to buy CC, and it isn't a prediction that the price will go up. It's simply my take on the current state of Canton and CC, why I remain invested and why I'm prepared to give it time. Everyone has their own expectations, investment strategies and appetite for risk. You might disagree with some of what I've said, and that's absolutely fine. I don't claim to have all the answers, and I'm certainly not saying Canton gets everything right. I just think there's a much bigger picture here than the daily price movements. That's my perspective, and it's why I'm still bullish on Canton for the long term.