Charles Hoskinson (born 1987 or 1988) is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of the blockchain engineering company Input Output Global, Inc. (formerly IOHK), and the Cardano blockchain platform,[2] and was a co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain platform.[3][4]
Charles Hoskinson | |
|---|---|
 Hoskinson in 2018, Mongolia. | |
| Born | 1987 or 1988 (age 36–37)[1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
|
| Known for | Founder of Cardano, co-founder of Ethereum |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Digital contracts, digital currencies |
| Website | iohk.io |
Early life and education
editHoskinson attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure.[5]
Hoskinson has claimed that he had entered a PhD program but had dropped out. However, Denver did not have a graduate program in mathematics. Colorado Boulder verified that he had attended as a half-time undergraduate math major, but did not earn a degree.[6] He also claimed repeatedly to have worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), though DARPA confirmed he had not.[7]
Career
editIn 2013, Hoskinson quit a consulting job to begin a project called the Bitcoin Education Project. According to Hoskinson, the limited supply makes Bitcoin like a digital form of gold.[8][9]
He joined the Ethereum team as one of five original founders with Vitalik Buterin in late 2013[3][10] and held the position of chief executive. Buterin and the Ethereum team removed Hoskinson in 2014 after a dispute over whether the project should be commercial (Hoskinson's view) or a nonprofit (Buterin's view).[3][10]
In late 2014, Hoskinson and former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood formed IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), an engineering and research company, to build cryptocurrencies and blockchains.[8] IOHK's key project is Cardano, a public blockchain and smart contract platform that hosts the ADA cryptocurrency.[8][11] Hoskinson did not pursue venture capital for Cardano, saying that it ran counter to the blockchain's principles.[12] Hoskinson has also said that venture capital involvement might lead to an outsized control of a project.[13]
IOHK has sponsored research focused on blockchain technology at the University of Edinburgh, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Wyoming.[14][15][16]
Forbes magazine estimated Hoskinson's wealth as $500m–$600m in 2018.[17]
Philanthropy
edit
In September 2021, Hoskinson donated $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University's philosophy department to establish and run the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics with the goal of studying formal logical systems.[18][19]
Hoskinson contributed $1.5 million to fund a 2023 Galileo Project expedition led by astronomer and "alien hunter" Avi Loeb to explore debris from the meteorite CNEOS 2014-01-08 (also called IM1) that crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2014.[20][21][22] Loeb argued that this object could have been created by alien life, an idea that lacked widespread support from the scientific community.[23][21][22] The expedition reported finding tiny metallic spheres from the object on the ocean floor. Loeb claimed his team's analysis of these spherules did not match any known alloy, though it was unclear whether they were artificial or natural in origin.[24] [25] However, a paper published by the American Astronomical Society In October showed that the chemical compositions provided by Loeb’s analysis most closely matched human-produced coal ash.[26]
Personal life
editAs of 2022, Hoskinson purchased a ranch near Wheatland, Wyoming, donated equipment to the Platte County Sheriff's Office, and purchased a restaurant in Wheatland.[27]
In 2023, Wyoming Public Radio said Hoskinson, along with his father, Dr. Mark Hoskinson, and brother, Dr. William Hoskinson, had opened a clinic focusing on anti-ageing and regenerative medicine in Gillette, Wyoming. Mark and William Hoskinson had both formerly worked for Campbell County Health. The director of the Hoskinson Health and Wellness Clinic said it had cost $18 million. Charles Hoskinson said cryptocurrency would be accepted in the future.[28]
Hoskinson was criticised after his private jet was ranked among the top 15 biggest polluters in the US on the Climate Jets website. Commentators contrasted the "green" reputation of Cardano with Hoskinson's personal travel. He defended his jet use, saying the plane had been used for charters for the band Metallica and film industry workers.[29]
Political views
editIn 2007, Hoskinson, "an anti-war Republican college student with an interest in monetary policy" worked as a fundraiser for the Republican presidential campaign of the Texas congressman Ron Paul. However, he grew disillusioned with the prospects for anti-government activism. "Libertarianism has always had a [bank] check it can’t cash," he said, "Just because we distrust the government doesn’t mean we don’t need a governing structure." He then discovered bitcoin and began exploring cryptocurrency.[30]
In May 2024, Slate magazine reported that Hoskinson was one of the technology and finance "disrupters" who were backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "RFK" was standing as an independent candidate for the US presidency. [31]
References
edit- ^ Kharif, Olga (November 5, 2020). "Charles Hoskinson Turns 33, Here's What He's Achieved by This Age". Bloomberg. Retrieved August 2, 2021 – via Yahoo! News.
- ^ Duffy, Jim (June 3, 2020). "Will Cardano shake finance to its foundations? Jim Duffy comment". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
- ^ a b c Russo, Camila (July 18, 2017). "Ethereum Co-Founder Says Crypto Coin Market Is a Time-Bomb". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
- ^ Hackett, Robert (April 8, 2019). "Ethereum Cofounder Says Blockchain Presents 'Governance Crisis'". Fortune. Archived from the original on April 9, 2019. Retrieved April 1, 2020.
- ^ "Input Output". Archived from the original on March 10, 2018.
- ^ Shin, Laura (February 22, 2022). "Epilogue". The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze. New York: Public Affairs, Hachette Book Group. ISBN 978-1-5417-6300-5.
That fall, on Twitter, when asked about his degree, he claimed, as he had for years, that he'd dropped out of a PhD program. Metropolitan State University of Denver, which doesn't have a graduate math program, said he'd been enrolled part-time as a math major between 2006 and 2008 and again from 2012 to 2014, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, said he was a half-time undergraduate math major for four semesters from spring 2009 to fall 2011. He never earned a degree from either. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency confirmed he had never worked directly for the agency.
- ^ Shin, chapter 2: "He also hinted to Mihai he'd worked with the renowned Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), doing cryptography, and had told Mathias he'd started college young but had gone crazy trying to solve Goldbach's conjecture." "Charles talked about how he had worked at DARPA on the front lines in Afghanistan and met a female military officer there, and she now texted him."
- ^ a b c Angel Au-Yeung (February 7, 2018). "A Fight Over Ethereum Led A Cofounder To Even Greater Crypto Wealth". Forbes Magazine. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
IOHK's key project: Cardano, a public blockchain and smart-contract platform which hosts the Ada cryptocurrency.
- ^ Gustke, Constance (July 3, 2013). "Does digital currency have staying power?". BBC. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
- ^ a b Paumgarten, Nick (October 15, 2018). "The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on January 9, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
- ^ Sugiura, Eri (July 2, 2018). "Startups push blockchain beyond cryptocurrency". Nikkei Asian Review. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
- ^ Livni, Ephrat (December 1, 2021). "Venture Capital Funding for Crypto Companies Is Surging". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 6, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ Livni, Ephrat (December 22, 2021). "Jack Dorsey and venture capitalists clash over the future of cryptocurrency". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
- ^ Williams-Grut, Oscar (February 24, 2017). "The University of Edinburgh is launching a blockchain research lab with one of the cofounders of Ethereum". Business Insider Australia. Archived from the original on March 28, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
- ^ "Stanford IOG Research Hub". tselab.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
- ^ Hamilton, Eve (February 14, 2020). "University of Wyoming Receives $500,000 Cryptocurrency Donation". KGAB AM650. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ Au-Yeung, Angel (February 7, 2018). "A Fight Over Ethereum Led A Cofounder To Even Greater Crypto Wealth". Forbes. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
- ^ "Carnegie Mellon Receives $20 Million to Establish Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics in Dietrich College". Carnegie Mellon University (Press release). September 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
- ^ Hronec, Jordyn (September 22, 2021). "Blockchain entrepreneur gifts $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University to establish mathematics center". Pittsburgh Business Times. www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
- ^ Fletcher, Seth (August 24, 2023). "How a Harvard Professor Became the World's Leading Alien Hunter". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
- ^ a b Miller, Katrina (July 24, 2023). "Scientist's Deep Dive for Alien Life Leaves His Peers Dubious - Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, says that material recovered from the seafloor could be from an extraterrestrial spacecraft. His peers are skeptical. + comment". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 6, 2023. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ a b Kloor, Keith (August 25, 2023). "How Wealthy UFO Fans Helped Fuel Fringe Beliefs". Scientific American. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
- ^ Tenorio, Rich (July 27, 2023). "Avi Loeb's claims of finding possible alien technology are polarizing scientists". Times of Israel. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
- ^ Ferreira, Becky (June 21, 2023). "Scientists Are Hunting for Alien Objects in the Ocean, And They've Just Found Something". Vice. Retrieved August 29, 2023.
- ^ "Why a Harvard professor thinks he may have found fragments of an alien spacecraft". The Independent. July 5, 2023. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
- ^ "No, Those Weird Spherules Weren't Alien Tech". Popular Mechanics. November 14, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
- ^ "New Wheatland resident comes bearing gifts". PC Record Times. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
- ^ "A new clinic in Gillette is seeking to change the healthcare scene in Campbell County and beyond". Wyoming Public Media. September 29, 2022. Retrieved November 6, 2023.
- ^ "Climate Concern Outs Crypto Founder for Modest Bizjet Usage | Aero-News Network". www.aero-news.net. Retrieved November 6, 2023.
- ^ Schreckinger, Ben (May 4, 2022). "Ron Paul's Revenge". Politico. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
- ^ Pahwa, Nitish (May 15, 2024). "RFK Jr.'s Long-Shot Bid Is Shockingly Alive. Thank His Brain Worm Coalition". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved May 30, 2024.