Cardano founder: From ETH veteran to all-rounder

Author: Zen, PANews

With ADA designated by Trump as one of the strategic reserves of cryptocurrencies, Cardano and its founder Charles Hoskinson have once again become the focus of the media. As an early evangelist of Bitcoin, a founding member of Ethereum, and the creator of Cardano, Charles, who has long been a billionaire, has often been known in alternative ways in the past few years: he not only contributed money and effort to search for extraterrestrial civilizations, opened medical research institutions, and even managed a ranch of 10,000 acres, getting involved in the traditional livestock industry. When Cardano once again became a hot topic of concern in the industry, Charles' story is also worth revisiting.

Early believers and evangelists of Bitcoin

In 2008, Charles Hoskinson was majoring in mathematics and analytic number theory in college. In addition to mathematics, he was also interested in studying monetary policy. In the same year, he participated in Republican Congressman Ron Paul's "Campiagn for Liberty". Ron advocated the abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank because he believed that it could not control inflation, but was the culprit for creating inflation, economic depression and hollowing out personal assets. A few years later, when he heard about Bitcoin, he didn't take it seriously at first, because he believed that the success of a currency does not lie in technology or dreams, but in how many people are willing to use it.

Until 2013, Charles changed his mind and began to believe that Bitcoin would change human money transactions, business relationships, corporate behavior, property rights certification and democratic models. He began to buy Bitcoin, mine, and founded the "Bitcoin Education Project", disseminating a series of Bitcoin education courses from monetary policy to blockchain technology for free on the Internet, and also established a cooperative relationship with Bitcoin Magazine.

At that time, Bitcoin was still in its infancy, the community was small, and it was not difficult for people in the industry to establish connections with each other. As long as you are enthusiastic enough, you can quickly enter the core circle, and Charles is one of them. During this period, Charles also met many early Bitcoin evangelists and technical experts through offline gatherings, and started his first entrepreneurial attempt - the decentralized exchange platform Bitshares.

Bitshares was co-founded by Charles and Daniel Larimer (nicknamed "BM"), who later founded EOS, but later parted ways due to different business philosophies. Charles later said that he believed that since venture capital had been introduced, the company's decisions must also be responsible for shareholders, and that diverse opinions were also beneficial to the company's development, but BM preferred to make independent decisions and did not want others to interfere. In the early days of the business, BM's father Stan Larimer also participated in Bitshares, and Charles' apartment was provided by Stan. Therefore, after differences of opinion, Charles had to take the initiative to withdraw.

The hasty departure of the "old man" who created Ethereum

In October 2013, Anthony Di lorio of the Canadian Bitcoin Alliance and Mihai Alisie of Bitcoin Magazine convened Charles and later Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to jointly start an ecological conception of a programming language for blockchain applications. Later, Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke and Joe Lubin were also invited to participate in the discussion.

In January 2014, at the North American Bitcoin Conference held in Miami, the Ethereum project was born in a gathering of nearly 30 people in a beach cabin rented by Anthony. At this time, Charles, the CEO of Ethereum, had quietly completed the transformation from a crypto evangelist to a core participant in the industry.

However, while Ethereum was rapidly advancing its development, it also had to face a key management decision - should Ethereum be made into a profitable enterprise or operated in a non-profit model? This issue sparked heated debate within the founding team. Charles advocated that Ethereum should follow Google's example and establish a for-profit company in order to obtain more resources to accelerate development. Vitalik insisted that Ethereum should maintain a decentralized spirit and adopt a non-profit model, and this long-term plan was also supported by most internal members.

Finally, due to differences in ideas, Charles chose to leave, and his title of Ethereum CEO was also invalidated. At this time, Ethereum was only founded for a short period of half a year. Many years later, Charles reviewed his position on Ethereum at that time and admitted that perhaps Vitalik's non-profit model was a more suitable path for Ethereum. And the facts also proved that the success of Ethereum is inseparable from the promotion of the community and the development of the open source ecosystem.

New Journey: Charles and his Cardano "Independent Kingdom"

According to Charles, after leaving Ethereum, he considered returning to academia to complete his doctoral studies. But fate seemed to have other plans for him - during this period of thinking about life, Charles met his former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood. The two hit it off and co-founded IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), a company focusing on blockchain and cryptocurrency engineering and research.

In the early days of the business, they only invested a few thousand dollars, but soon received many blockchain development contracts, and IOHK received compensation in the form of Bitcoin. Fortunately, the Bitcoin market subsequently ushered in a big bull market, and IOHK soon achieved huge profits, allowing them to have enough funds to independently develop blockchain without relying on external financing. Thus, Cardano was born. It is worth mentioning that when Charles created Cardano in 2017, he resolutely refused to introduce venture capital. He believed that the intervention of capital would violate the core principle of "decentralization" in the crypto industry. He said that venture capital often takes "their share of profits" from the project first, which runs counter to the open spirit of cryptocurrency.

With the rapid development of Cardano, IOHK has enough funds to sponsor research laboratories at the University of Edinburgh and Tokyo Institute of Technology, which eventually promoted the birth of the Ouroboros consensus protocol and became the core mechanism of the Cardano blockchain. In 2018, Cardano also announced a partnership with the Ethiopian government to explore the application of blockchain technology. However, the bear market at the time plunged the entire crypto industry into a trough, and Cardano also entered a downturn. It was not until 2021 that Cardano gradually recovered with the market, and its Ada token also climbed to an all-time high of more than $2.

It is worth mentioning that compared with other Layer1s such as Ethereum and Solana, Cardano's transaction volume and activity are far behind, so it is often criticized as a "zombie chain" and criticized for seeming to rely entirely on the popularity of its creator to survive. Even so, as of March 6, Cardano (Ada)'s full circulation market value was still as high as US$42.7 billion, and its circulation market value exceeded US$34 billion.

The reason why Cardano is so popular in the Japanese market and even called "Japanese Ethereum" is largely related to its early financing model. It is reported that nearly 95% of the buyers in Cardano's public offering came from Japanese investors, also known as "retirement investment", mainly because the public offering was led by the Japanese company Emurgo. At that time, Japan's regulatory environment was relatively loose compared to Europe and the United States, which also made Cardano misunderstood as a Japanese project. But with the increasing openness of US encryption policies, Cardano is gradually fading its Japanese impression.

Political bets: from Kennedy Jr. to Trump

In April 2024, Charles Hoskinson announced his support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) for the presidency of the United States. Robert Kennedy Jr. believed that intelligence agencies, technology platforms and regulators had exceeded their authority. Charles believed that this resonated with the liberal foundation of his blockchain career. He also praised Kennedy's subtle stance on various issues such as immigration policy and drug regulation. In August 2024, when Kennedy withdrew from the election and joined the Trump camp, Charles also became a supporter of Trump.

Last November 9, after Trump's victory, Charles announced in his podcast that he would spend most of the next year working with the Trump administration to develop clear regulations for the cryptocurrency industry. He noted that he would do so with several other industry leaders. As soon as the news came out, the price of ADA soared, rising by more than 40% in 24 hours to a 7-month high of more than $0.6.

On March 2, US President Trump announced on social media that his digital asset executive order instructed the presidential task force to advance the strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies including XRP, SOL and ADA. Trump also said that he would ensure that the United States would become the world's cryptocurrency capital and was making America great again. As soon as the news came out, ADA soared, and its price rose from $0.65 to above $1.10.

Charles Hoskinson responded later that he knew nothing about "Trump's team seeking to include ADA in the cryptocurrency reserve." "We didn't know about it at all, and no one talked to us about it. When I woke up on March 2, I received 150 congratulatory messages, but I really didn't know what happened." Judging from the fact that he was not invited to the White House Cryptocurrency Summit on March 8, perhaps Charles was really caught off guard by "ADA's greatness again."

"Unprofessional" all-rounder: aliens, cattle breeding and plant genetic modification

After achieving great success in the field of cryptocurrency and blockchain and becoming a billionaire, Charles Hoskinson has also actively engaged in philanthropy. In 2021, he donated about $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University to establish the "Hoskinson Mathematics Center". In addition, in 2023, he also funded $1.5 million and traveled with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb to Papua New Guinea to search for "meteor fragments" that fell into the Pacific Ocean in 2014. Although the results were not satisfactory-Loeb's team claimed to have found tiny metal balls of objects created by alien life on the seabed, but according to a statement from the American Astronomical Society, the chemical composition provided by Loeb's analysis is closest to the coal ash produced by humans.

In addition to searching for extraterrestrial life, Charles Hoskinson has also invested in a variety of work and new businesses, including but not limited to animal husbandry, catering, medical care, plant genetic engineering and private jet leasing.

Charles owns an 11,000-acre ranch near Wheatland, Wyoming, raising more than 500 bison. Due to the lack of good dining options in nearby towns, he simply opened Nessie's restaurant and whiskey lounge in Wheatland. Charles has also repeatedly emphasized that his restaurant will be cryptocurrency-friendly. In addition, Charles, who was born into a family of doctors (his father and brother are both doctors), opened the Hoskinson Health and Wellness Clinic in Gillette, Wyoming, focusing on anti-aging and regenerative medicine. The clinic is said to cost $18 million.

"If you want to solve the problem of global warming or improve the environment, it makes sense to participate in plant genetic engineering." Charles has also been fascinated by luminous plants in recent years. He said that plants with directed genetic modification can not only produce organic lighting, but also store carbon, eliminate toxic chemicals, and provide other environmental benefits. According to Charles, the plant species that his team has successfully modified include cultivated tobacco and Arabidopsis.

However, according to a report, in 2022, Charles Hoskinson's private jet flew a total of 562 hours, with a flight distance of about 456,000 kilometers, which is greater than the distance between the moon and the earth's apogee. He ranks among the top 15 polluters in the United States for private jets, with emissions exceeding those of billionaires and Hollywood celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg and Kim Kardashian. Charles said that this was because his private jet was good enough, so he worked with a third-party company to rent it to private clients. He also said that his frequent guests included the rock band Metallica and Hollywood superstar Dwayne Johnson.

In response, Charles joked in a video: "My personal energy consumption may be quite high, not only because I have a jet, but also because I have a large ranch in Wyoming with 500 bison."

A blockchain pioneer who is controversial and has a fake resume?

Last August, before Robert Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the campaign, he had an interview with Charles. It caused a lot of criticism before it was broadcast, and many people complained that RFK Jr. should not talk to "liars."

Fame brings controversy, and Charles Hoskinson has always been controversial. In her personal experience, the well-known cryptocurrency journalist Laura Shin criticized and questioned Charles in her book "The Cryptopian", which deeply explored the early development history of Bitcoin. The book pointed out that there was no evidence that Hoskinson had studied for a doctorate, and his highest degree might only be an undergraduate degree. In addition, Laura also accused Charles of exaggerating his resume and lying that he had connections with the CIA and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and the authenticity of these statements was questionable.

Faced with doubts, Charles sarcastically said on social media: "This book is a good work of fiction, but it is still a bit difficult to surpass Tolkien (author of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings") and George R. R. Martin (author of "A Song of Ice and Fire")." Laura immediately hit back, emphasizing that all her content had been strictly fact-checked.

Despite the controversy, the popular Cardano is still developing, although its technical strength and market positioning are still being discussed from different angles. As an important figure in the blockchain industry, whether Charles' past boasting is true or not, whether his choice is correct or not, there is no doubt that his story has become an important chapter in the crypto world.