As the co-founder of both the Ethereum and Cardano blockchains, Charles Hoskinson has a lot to say about the future of cryptocurrency.
A System Without Regulators?
In a recent interview, Hoskinson commented that the entire point of cryptocurrency is to lead people on what he calls a “leaderless” journey. That factors like one’s finances and personal data should always be controlled solely by the individual in question, and thus the government or corporations have no place in these areas.
He also comments that a system without a governor of sorts presents a lot of challenges and problems which are likely to dominate the 21st century. Many businesses and companies are entertaining the idea of operating without executive teams, and he says this idea has both strengths and weaknesses:
We really do have a governance crisis. This is the first time ever where we’re flirting with the idea of a corporation without a CEO or a country without a president. That is a very big challenge, and it’s something I think will consume the majority of the 21st century for the cryptocurrency space.
Hoskinson was released from his position with Ethereum following a disagreement with co-founder Vitalik Buterin over which direction the company should take in its early days. He has continued to jab his former business associate and partner, saying that Buterin engages in a one-man operating scheme where one person leads developers on a quest to solve a problem. He says that this method doesn’t work the way it should:
One brilliant founder, whether it be Dan [Larimer, co-founder of the EOS blockchain project] or Vitalik will lead a small group of crack engineers to somehow innovate and solve a big problem. Nothing gets done that way.
He claims that for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to survive, founders and innovators must agree upon a set list of protocols that every leader in the space must follow:
We’re not going to get there in the financial industry unless we have good standards to move value and information between all these different ledgers.
We All Need to Come Together
This, he says, has occurred with items like wi-fi and Bluetooth. He states that technology leaders agreed upon set methods and have stuck to them over the years, which is why the arena of consumer electronics have done so well as of late.
Aside from his work with both Ethereum and Cardano, Hoskinson is also the chief executive of IOHK, a consulting and research firm in Hong Kong for blockchain and crypto-based projects. He is also an advisory member of Zen Cash, a privacy coin, and is a consistent proponent of Ethereum Classic, which he claims is the true version of the ether token.