Inside the Cardano ecosystem with Charles Hoskinson

Episode 3 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global.

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ADA — the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano network — is among the myriad of cryptocurrencies that saw their price soar in 2021.

On this episode of The Scoop, The Block’s Frank Chaparro sat down with Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and CEO of Input-Output Global, to unpack the ecosystem underpinning the price headlines.

While Cardano’s ADA has surged over the course of 2021, the blockchain that underpins the token is yet to play host to a large decentralized exchange, of the kind that has sprung up on networks like Ethereum and Solana. Questions have also arisen about the number of successful decentralized applications or ‘DApps’ in the ecosystem when compared to networks.

Hoskinson says that this sentiment reflects a misunderstanding about what is being developed on Cardano.

“There’s almost 200 DApps that are under construction right now,” he noted. “SundaeSwap is one of the most prominent, it’s launching tomorrow,” referring to the DEX that launched Thursday — albeit with congestion issues that resulted in some transactions taking longer than expected to complete.

“There are several already running on the ecosystem,” Hoskinson clarified. “And, you know, smart contract support technically started just in September of last year.”

Looking to the future, Hoskinson believes that Cardano can continue to become more decentralized as it grows over time, noting that if its valuation ever hit bitcoin’s it would have “tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of stake pools running the system or complemented by tons of validators inside the system.”

In the future, Cardano could even continue to exist without the participation of the Wyoming resident. “The founders are important because they get the party started and they set the initial state of the system.”

He went on to add:

“I think that you have to plan for obsolescence, you have to plan to fire yourself. And that’s what Satoshi did.”

In this episode, Chaparro and Hoskinson also discuss:

• How the “semantic web” is turning into the metaverse, and the role of companies like Facebook and Twitter
• How crypto networks can develop beyond their founders
• DAOs as alternatives to VCs
• The importance of engaging with academia when building blockchains
• How institutions in politics are “falling apart” and failing the people they serve

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.