Charles Hoskinson
Charles Hoskinson is an American programmer and entrepreneur, founder of the Cardano cryptocurrency (ADA) and co-founder of Ethereum (ETH).
Hoskinson was born on November 5, 1987 in Hawaii. He was educated at the University of Denver and the University of Colorado. Hoskinson specialized in analytical number theory, but the future father of Cardano dropped out without receiving a bachelor’s degree.
After graduation, Charles got a job at a consulting company, where he worked until 2013. Shortly after his dismissal, Hoskinson launched his own project called the Bitcoin Education Project (BEP). The goal of the BEP was to increase the knowledge of ordinary users about bitcoin and to create a cryptocurrency suitable for use in everyday life. According to the official website of the Bitcoin Education Project, in 2013, Hoskinson defended 6 main crypto principles:
- objectivity
- transparency
- accuracy
- responsibility
- inclusiveness
- honesty
Obviously, Charles Hoskinson still adheres to these principles.
In late 2013, Hoskinson joined the team of 8 Ethereum founders, including Vitalik Buterin. For several months, Charles worked for the benefit of Ethereum as its CEO. However, already in 2014, a dispute arose between Buterin and Hoskinson over the future of the project. Hoskinson wanted to make ETN a commercial project, while Buterin wanted it to be a non-profit.
Due to the inability to resolve the conflict with Buterin and opposing visions of the project’s future, Hoskinson left Ethereum. At the end of 2014, Charles, together with Jeremy Wood, another Ethereum colleague, created IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), a company engaged in the research and development of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. IOHK’s main project is Cardano, a blockchain and smart contract platform that contains its own cryptocurrency, ADA.
Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is powered by the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm and is a decentralized blockchain-based platform for developing decentralized applications (DApps) that supports multi-asset and smart contracts.
Cardano development began in 2015 and the platform was launched in 2017. The Ada cryptocurrency debuted with a market capitalization of $ 600 million. As of November 12, 2022, ADA is ranked 7th in terms of market capitalization, trading at $ 0.34. The market capitalization of the digital asset is $ 12 billion.
At the end of September, the Cardano blockchain underwent a historic update — the Vasil hard fork increased the scalability of the decentralized network and overall usability. «Vasil has extended the capabilities of Cardano smart contracts with Plutus V2 scripts and sales models. The upgrade will reduce the cost of script execution and transaction size, as well as increase throughput,» explained Frederik Groegaard, chairman of the Cardano Foundation, on September 23.
Charles Hoskinson is known for his love of eccentric actions and statements, one of the most recent being the hijacking of the Ethereum Classic Twitter account. On October 7, the developer took over the ETH Classic account, and the account has now been renamed Ergo_Platform. According to Hoskinson, he remembered that he had access to the Ethereum Classic account because he was once a member of the cryptocurrency’s development team. As a moral compensation, the Cardano father decided to take the account and use it as a new page of the decentralized PoW-based Ergo Platform.
«I can’t get back the millions of dollars I spent on development or the years I spent supporting the Ethereum blockchain», Hoskinson wrote at the time, taking over 600,000 followers from Ethereum Classic, a page that was created in July 2016.
Most recently, Hoskinson said he was ready to work with Vitalik Buterin again. He explained that he would like to develop a project with the father of ethereum «that feels right.» Hoskinson noted that he would be interested in working with Buterin on research into human biological aging and regenerative medicine. «In the future, if we have ideas for such developments, we will collaborate on it,» he added. It is not clear whether Buterin will agree to collaborate with Hoskinson after years of controversy — the question remains open.