charles hoskinson

Chico Crypto Goes Head-to-Head with Cardano Founder on Smart Contracts

Crypto gets its first bout in the ring with well-known crypto YouTuber Tyler Swope aka Chico Crypto going head to head against Charles Hoskinson Founder of Cardano.

As reported from Chico Crypto himself, live streaming on youtube, a fight has been on the cards for weeks. With quips coming from both sides on who would win and who would be happy to get this fight moving.

The proceeds will all go towards charity which will make it a fight for a good cause, many other events have taken place in recent years with influencers getting into the ring. This time St. Judges Children’s Hospital will receive all of the proceeds.

Industry awareness for blockchain and raising money for charities is all a positive that will surely get enough media coverage. But does this have any meaning for cryptocurrency or blockchain?

With many questioning, if this is newsworthy, only time will tell leading up to and after the event. Mass adoption and media need to continue to breach all industries, with sports being a fantastic podium to discuss more the technology and what it can do for the athletes, ticket offices and more.

Showing off what blockchain can currently do, the fighters’ contracts for the fight will very likely happen on-chain. With both fighters agreeing to terms and having everything signed likely on the Ethereum blockchain. Showcasing what can currently be achieved, and its many benefits will be one strong reason why those in the industry should be hoping for more information and events like this to be shared on traditional media channels, with those not working or investing in the industry.

Smart contracts will have a great chance to shine showing how agreements can be carried out fairly, cheaply and effectively using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) aka Blockchain.

Taking control of how proceeds are distributed, rewarded and also confirmed is a huge advantage that DLT brings. With over 60,000 subscribers coming from YouTuber Chico Crypto alone, it could be one of the biggest crypto events of 2020.

Image via Lee Cooper

Cardano EUTXO Blockchain Upgrade Will Combine the Best Of Bitcoin and Ethereum

Cardano (ADA) has released a detailed outline of how it will implement its smart contracts using the extended UTXO model. The file was shared on founder Charles Hoskinson’s Twitter feed on Jan. 27.

The smart contract implementation is vital to the upcoming Goguen update.

Keeping the Record—UTXO vs Account/Balance Model

Two popular types of record-keeping models in modern blockchain networks are the UTXO model and the Account/Balance Model.

UTXO stands for ‘unspent transaction output’. It is the output of a transaction that a user receives and is able to spend in the future as it is ‘unspent’. UTXO primarily helps to organize a blockchain ledger so that funds cannot be spent twice.

The Bitcoin blockchain works on the principle of a UTXO model and was first developed by Satoshi Nakomoto, although it is not mentioned in the original Bitcoin White Paper. In Bitcoin, each transaction is based on the concept of outputs and inputs which represent specific amounts of Bitcoin. A user’s wallet keeps track of a list of unspent transactions associated with all addresses owned by the user and the balance of the wallet is calculated as the sum of those unspent transactions. The original Bitcoin script relied heavily on UTXO to check wallets for sufficient funds when a transaction was requested.

Ethereum’s blockchain uses the Account/Balance model. This model is the same as a typical bank with the bank tracking how much money each debit card has, and when we need to spend, the bank checks the record to see how much money is left and if it is sufficient for the transaction.

Cardano EUTXO Wants Best Of Both Worlds

According to the research, “Ethereum chose the account model explicitly to facilitate more expressive smart contracts. On the other hand, Bitcoin chose UTXO for good reasons, including that its semantic model stays simple in a complex concurrent and distributed computing environment.”

Cardano’s proposed EUTXO (Extended UTXO) will be a combination of both models to potentially have “expressive smart contracts while keeping the semantic simplicity of the UTXO model.”

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Cardano CEO Getting a OneCoin Vibe from Federal Reserve's 'Infinite Cash' Statement

In an interview given to CBS’s 60 Minutes on March 22, 2020, Neel Kashkari, the President of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis made a controversial remark after being asked to comment on how the state would deal with it if a situation like the 2008 financial crisis came again due the Coronavirus outbreak.

On being asked whether the Federal Reserve Bank is equipped well enough to provide money to all the banks if they needed to satisfy all incoming panic withdrawals, Mr. Neel Kashkari was quick to respond that this is the reason why Federal Reserve Bank exists.

“Yes. This is the fundamental reason the Federal Reserve exists.”, said Mr. Neel Kashkari. He further added, “If everybody gets scared at the same time and they demand their money back, that’s why the Federal Reserve is here, is to make sure that there’s liquidity, that there’s money to meet those demands.”

Mr. Neel Kashkari further clarified his controversial statement by saying ‘that’s what Congress has told us to do’. He stated that they have been given the authority to print money and provide liquidity in the financial system by first creating it electronically and then printing it with the Treasury Department.

After the interview went live on the internet it received a wave of public criticism, one of the voice was the CEO of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson. He went on to tweet that the comments made by Neel Kashkari gave the US Dollar a real OneCoin Ponzi scam vibe.

OneCoin was a Ponzi token scam that aimed to capitalize of the success and hype of Bitcoin. It is estimated that the scam costed its investors around $4 Billion as they had no idea that the tokens that they were buying had no value.

And it wasn’t just the CEO of Cardano but also other cryptocurrency experts like Anthony Pompliano and Changpeng Zhao who took a dig at Neel Kashkari’s comment.

Anthony Pompliano, co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital tweeted, “History tells us that this is not sustainable long-term for a currency.”

“Ever heard about ‘supply, demand and price’? What happens to price when you have infinite supply?”, tweets CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao.

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Overthrowing Bitcoin? Charles Hoskinson Says Cardano Set to Become the Next Best Crypto

In his latest Periscope video, Charles Hoskinson, the creator of Cardano, once again emphasizes that the smart contract platform would become technologically superior to leading networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum or any other blockchain in the industry this year. Charles Hoskinson, the CEO of IOHK, who is also the co-founder of Cardano (ADA) and Ethereum, has stated that Cardano will become the best cryptocurrency in 2020. He made this revelation in a video on twitter when talking about Cardano in 2020.

Cardano best positioned to see massive gains

In the 30-minute video, Charles Hoskinson stated that although advancements in smart contracts and wallets have been revolutionary in the recent years, Cardano is pulling all the pieces together to ascend as the most advanced blockchain in the space. According to Hoskinson, the upcoming improvements will make Cardano the best cryptocurrency in the world.

Hoskinson said, “This year, the industry will see Cardano ascend to the best cryptocurrency in the world. There really is going to be nothing on the market that’s as good as what we’re delivering this year. Because at the end of the day we have it all.”

He revealed how they would have a smart contract system, identity standard, loading system, clear interoperability, multi-asset standard, and all the scalability, which is needed to meet the rising demands.

Hoskinson mentioned that from investors, traders, developers to individuals to operate or govern the platform, the company is set to become the best in class in all of those things. He said that is what the company is delivering, and that is what his team is dedicated to delivering in the entire 2020.

However, Hoskinson cautions that Cardano’s superiority in performance does not imply that it will automatically become the most widely used or popular platform. He clarified that would depend on the success of the commercial venture incubator Emurgo and the Cardano Foundation.

Currently, Cardano stands strong with a network of scientists, engineers, and academics who are developing the platform. It is also constantly promoted, studied, and upgraded by three bodies – IOHK, Emurgo, and the Cardano Foundation.

The Cardano Foundation is a body that continuously protects, develops, and studies the cryptocurrency side of Cardano. Emurgo is the body that focuses on possible commercial connections of Cardano to entrepreneurs. IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong) is the body that continuously maintains and designs the Cardano platform.

Cardano blockchain combines the best of Bitcoin and Ethereum

Cardano recently released a formalized description of how its unique smart contract would be upgraded in the upcoming Goguen update. The cryptocurrency is unique because it stands as the perfect mix of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin functions as a decentralized peer-to-peer system run by blockchain. Using the same technology, Ethereum was built as a platform which can produce its own token and uses smart contract. These contracts give tokens or apps built on the platform, which will only be done after the requirements set by the user are fulfilled. Cardano mixes these best features in its own blockchain-run smart contract platform. The crypto currently holds a great potential to become a leading cryptocurrency and software, even surpassing that of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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Cardano’s Shelley Mainnet Code Launch at Virtual Summit Could be a Catalyst for ADA Price Rally

Cardano (ADA) price has shown a bearish trend in the past few days, according to on-chain data. However, Cardano has been the third best-performing cryptocurrency in the top 30 according to market capitalization in terms of price gain in the past month, behind Crypto.com, and VeChain.

Cardano describes itself as a third-generation blockchain platform, aiming to significantly improve shortcomings of the first generation, Bitcoin, and the second generation, Ethereum, including smart contracts.

The IOHK team, one of the leading entities contributing to the development of Cardano, is taking ADA to its next milestone. Two teams of developers from IOHK have been developing two different systems of the staking protocol, including the Byron-derived version, which is currently in use, and a Haskell-based Shelley system.

Taking on a scientific approach, Cardano has learned the limitations of the two prior generations. According to Charles Hoskinson, the founder of IOHK as well as one of the co-founders of Ethereum, he understands the importance of the long-term evolution of the platform in areas such as scalability, governance, and extensibility when making decisions around architecture.

The Shelley upgrade

Prior to the bearish slump, Cardano’s ADA cryptocurrency has risen around 50% since late May 2020, in light of the news of its Shelley upgrade. The Shelley mainnet is a decentralized network of community nodes operating on a proof-of-stake consensus protocol, with less central governance coming from the developers. In other words, the Cardano ecosystem is moving from a centralized network to a distributed network system.

As the anticipation for Cardano to introduce its upcoming Shelley mainnet, ADA’s price has benefited from the announcement and successful testnet before its launch. The launch of the Cardano Shelley mainnet remains on schedule, and IOHK is already in the final and crucial phase, with no major bugs found so far.

Ethereum killer to be announced?

IOHK will be hosting a virtual summit on July 2 – 3 for the launch of Cardano’s Shelley code. The virtual event will allow participants to attend free of charge, and according to Hoskinson, there will be a lot of “cool” announcements during the summit.

One of the new “cool” announcements to be expected is the new multi-asset standard from Cardano, which is said to be much superior to Ethereum’s ERC20 standard. Hoskinson recently presented Prism, an identity solution that uses decentralized IDs, to compete with products from Microsoft.

A new roadmap for Cardano’s developments will also be presented, as well as a presentation of how Cardano can be used commercially. These new announcements could jumpstart a new rally for ADA price. With a new range of commercial uses to be presented by Cardano, further crypto adoption could be expected.

Cardano joins Hyperledger Consortium

Earlier this month, IOHK announced that the company has joined the Hyperledger Consortium, an open-source community focused on developing a set of frameworks for enterprise blockchains. Hyperledger consortium has more than 250 member companies, with industry leaders in the financial services, technology, and other related fields.

IOHK will be collaborating with other companies in the blockchain ecosystem, to expand its interoperability with the other projects in the consortium.

Charles Hoskinson to Airdrop Kanye Coin and Pierce Coin to Demonstrate Cardano’s Multi-Asset Standard

With the recent new announcements of US presidential candidates, Kanye West, and Brock Pierce, crypto venture capitalist, and former child star, Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson made new announcements.

Just one more day to go with the availability of participants being able to interact with the Shelley mainnet launched on June, 30; Charles Hoskinson, the founder, and CEO of Input Output (IOHK), the blockchain engineering firm behind the Cardano blockchain, took it to his “Ask me anything” (AMA) session on YouTube, addressing the recent news on the US Presidential candidates, Kanye West and Brock Pierce.

“If it’s not a joke, when Cardano has native assets, to demonstrate the power uniqueness of native assets, we will issue Kanye Coin, and the circulation will be 1 token for each vote that Kanye gets in the election.”

He added that they could be collector’s items and Cardano will airdrop them proportionally to all the ADA holders. “We wish you very well, Kanye,” he said.

Backing Kanye West’s wish to run for president is technology multi-billionaire Elon Musk, who tweeted a reply to Kanye’s post. He stipulated enthusiastically that the American rapper had his full support.

In addition to the Kanye Coin, Hoskinson mentioned that he is also old friends with crypto venture capitalist Brock Pierce, and he is committing to doing the same for Pierce. The Founder and CEO of IOHK mentioned that it is a good way of demonstrating how multi-asset standard works, and connections through real-life events. This will require an oracle, and Cardano will look to build one to get it running, hopefully before the election, said Hoskinson.

Charles Hoskinson’s Surprise AMA July 6, 2020 on YouTube.

The multi-asset standard is expected to be released within 120 days, as announced at the recent Cardano Virtual Summit Shelley Edition. The event was held on July 2-3, with a massive turnout of about 10,000 participants, according to Hoskinson.

“We got 120 days to kick it into overdrive, I don’t like to lose. I like to win. […] We have the momentum and the wins at our back, and if we really commit and push in with the community in the ecosystem, we’re going to wake up at the end of the year and it’s going to be inevitable and I’m going to be able to make that tweet—GG, V. Then, we go for number 1.”

To have a prediction market in place, Cardano could leverage the cFund, its technology ecosystem fund launched alongside Wave Financial, with investments made globally with a typical size of $250,000-$500,000. Participants can make predictions of which coin will have a higher circulation—Kanye Coin or Pierce Coin.

The fund will total in $20 million which will provide money for companies and projects in the Cardano ecosystem. IOHK will be committing to half of the fund, $10 million, while Wave will be raising the other half.

Cardano’s potential “own monetary policy”

According to Hoskinson, Cardano is likely to conduct two experiments, one on ERGO, and a likely a joint venture between ERGO and Emurgo, as the company is almost finished with its due diligence. The other experiment would be a basket coin, which is made up of a collection of pre-existing stablecoins, hold them on reserve on a cryptocurrency, and then use an oracle to “inject that basket on Cardano.”

The projects are still in their early days, and the stablecoin could be under its own monetary policy rather than the US dollar.

Cardano Announces Shelley Mainnet Launch for a More Secure and Fully Decentralized Future Leading to the “Voltaire” Era

When is the Cardano Shelley era coming?

The blockchain engineering company behind Cardano, Input-Output (IOHK) announced in a blog post that the Shelley code was successfully implemented in Cardano’s mainnet. This announcement marks the biggest upgrade to the Cardano blockchain so far, with the deployment of the Shelley code confirmed to have been successfully released on the mainnet on June 30.

According to IOHK, Cardano is taking a step closer to full decentralization, and participants on the network will be able to interact with the mainnet from July 7. Holders of the Cardano cryptocurrency, ADA can transfer their funds to the upgraded Shelley wallet, for staking rewards on the mainnet. These announcements were made prior to the Cardano Virtual Summit, held on July 2-3, 2020.

Starting off the Cardano Virtual Summit, Charles Hoskinson, the CEO of IOHK and co-founder of Ethereum gave an introductory speech to kick off the virtual event.

Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK at the Cardano Virtual Summit: Shelley Edition 2020

Cardano released a detailed outline of how it will implement its smart contracts using the extended unspent transaction output (UTXO) model. Referring to the update made to Cardano, Hoskinson said, “we found that the things that go on the blockchain are important as things that are off the chain.” He further added that the listing experience and for issuing Cardano will be “beautiful and easy.”

A new level of security—Ouroboros Praos

Cardano went through a hard fork on February 20, which switched the mainnet from the original consensus protocol Ouroboros Classic to Ouroboros BFT, which is a slimmed-down version of the protocol in preparation for the switch to Praos. Ouroboros Praos is another milestone for Cardano, as major steps and advances were taken with the implementation of this proof-of-stake consensus protocol.

The previous two consensus protocols, Ouroborus Classic and Ouroboros BFT allowed users to calculate who the next block leader would be. This would create a significant security loophole, where bad actors would be able to know who to attack, possibly with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. However, Cardano’s new consensus protocol Ouroboros Praos provides a major security advantage, by not making this information public, only the next block leader would know of his or her position, making it harder for bad actors to attack, not knowing who to target specifically.

Hoskinson emphasized that users should not suffer when mistakes are made on the technical side, but rather, the protocol should protect users from attackers.

Charles Hoskinson said in a press release shared with Blockchain.News:

“The community has always been central in the development of Cardano, so we’re excited to be entering a new phase of the blockchain, with users more able than ever to participate in and shape the network.”

Prism: A decentralized digital identity system without the government involved

According to Hoskinson, the teams behind Cardano realized early on that value and assets “were not enough,” and since presented Atala Prism, a decentralized identity management system. Prism is an additional product member of the Cardano ecosystem and aims to provide “unbanked” people a blockchain-based economic ID and boosting consumer data privacy and security with “self-sovereign” digital identities.

As BigTech intermediaries usually are able to access, store, and share personal data, Prism aims to combat the growing issue of cybersecurity and data privacy risks. Prism enables users to be able to create and control their own digital identities without third parties, intermediaries, or government parties involved.

Prism could operate in regulated environments, as a platform for all kinds of medical records to be used in the supply chain and to identify people and to determine whether counterparties are credible to work with. IOHK has been exploring cross-blockchain standards, CSS, HTML, and built a framework on top of Cardano. Prism will have authenticated addresses, for people to withdraw funds from those authenticated accounts, and will also satisfy the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s Travel Rule.

The future of Cardano: Full decentralization and the “Voltaire era”

The Shelley hard fork, a remaining step towards full decentralization on the Cardano blockchain is expected on July 29, which marks another significant milestone for IOHK.

IOHK recently announced that it is launching a technology ecosystem fund—cFund, with Wave Financial Group, with investments made globally with a typical size of $250,000-$500,000. In partnership with the crypto asset management fund Wave, the fund will total in $20 million which will provide money for companies and projects in the Cardano ecosystem. IOHK will be committing to half of the fund, $10 million, while Wave will be raising the other half.

Hoskinson spoke briefly about the “Voltaire” era of Cardano, which has the goal for the Cardano network to become truly decentralized, which requires the distributed infrastructure introduced in the Shelley era. Hoskinson added:

“The Voltaire testnet, launching along with Shelley, will get funding that they need, grow the voting mechanics, get funding where it needs to go.”

Cardano expects the future of the network to be in the hands of the community, “who will have everything they need to grow and evolve Cardano from the secure, decentralized basis established by IOHK,” according to the Cardano roadmap.

Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Addresses an Alleged ADA Scam in China

Scammers are capitalizing on the recent success of Cardano’s cryptocurrency, ADA, and using it for their own personal gain. For the first time in over a year, ADA has moved above $0.10, and has picked up by over 200 percent.

According to a video footage shot by cryptocurrency podcaster and founder of Boxmining Michael Gu, a group of farmers in China is being hustled with Cardano and ADA. The fraudsters, operating under the name of “Asian Dragons,” was purported to be seen advertising Cardano merch and ADA. In the video, one can see Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson plastered at the front for the audience to see.

Since the incident, Cardano Foundation and CEO Charles Hoskinson have come out publicly and addressed the incident, making it absolutely clear that they are not in any way associated with the cryptocurrency sales pitch.

Hoskinson even went further and filmed a YouTube video, inputting his two cents on scams and illegal activities. He states that he has also seen every ICO scam under the moon, as he has been in the business for quite some time. Hoskinson shares that it is unfortunate that his hard work was plagiarised and dumbed down to a mere marketing scam:

“You work five years on something, you put your heart and soul into it, you just have a giant event that 10,000 people attend. Then you see floating around Telegram, Twitter, some video — some scammers in China using my face, our company’s logo, the Cardano Foundation’s logo who have absolutely no affiliation with us.”

As the altcoin ADA skyrocketed in the month of July, market experts have disclosed that it is the highest price level it’s been at since June 2019. Currently, ADA is experiencing a 200% year-to-date gain, making it the biggest news on crypto markets. ADA’s counterpart Bitcoin, which is the top cryptocurrency on crypto markets, only saw a surge of 30% this year.

On top of his recent success with his blockchain firm, Input Output (IOHK) CEO Hoskinson also spoke up in support of Kanye West’s recent announcement that the rap star wished to run for presidency. Hoskinson took to his YouTube platform once again and said,

“If it’s not a joke, when Cardano has native assets, to demonstrate the power uniqueness of native assets, we will issue Kanye Coin, and the circulation will be 1 token for each vote that Kanye gets in the election.”

Cardano Flags Suspicious Investment Claims of Individuals Posing as BTCNEXT Employees

The Cardano Foundation recently announced on their forum that they have received reports of suspicious claims from a group of individuals operating under the company BTCNEXT, a cryptocurrency exchange located in the Caribbean.

The individuals claimed to work for the Caribbean crypto exchange and declared that investments made with them were safe. They backed their claims by claiming to know the core head members of the Cardano Foundation.

While BTCNEXT has not yet personally come forward to speak about the subject matter, Cardano was quick to refute these claims. The blockchain company made it clear that they had nothing to do with the individuals, and urged all ADA investors not to believe false claims from third-party entities claiming affiliation with Cardano:

“We strongly urge you not to send your ADA to any third-party entities which claim to have partnerships with Cardano or officials from the entities within the Cardano ecosystem. We will never ask you to send your funds (assets) to us.”

The crypto foundation went on to reiterate that they took scams and fraudulent information seriously and that this was a huge violation to the crypto community. This is not the first time that Cardano Foundation has come forward to regulate crypto scams. Since their official cryptocurrency’s success on the crypto market, various scammers have capitalized on Cardano’s success and used the foundation’s name to gain trust from their victims to carry out fraudulent schemes.

CEO of Cardano Foundation Charles Hoskinson has addressed this matter publicly and expressed his disgust:

“You work five years on something, you put your heart and soul into it, you just have a giant event that 10,000 people attend. Then you see floating around Telegram, Twitter, some video — some scammers in China using my face, our company’s logo, the Cardano Foundation’s logo who have absolutely no affiliation with us.”

Cardano Addresses Fake ADA Giveaway Claims on YouTube

Cardano CEO Charles Hoskinson has once again come forward to address the issue of cryptocurrency scams targeting his ADA empire and has been quick to refute any associations phishers made with the Cardano Foundation.

Phishing for Money

Recently, there have been cases where ads run by scammers on YouTube promoted fake ADA giveaways. A way cyber fraudsters operated was to reproduce the speeches of important crypto figures such as Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, and Changpeng Zhao (respectively the co-creator of Ethereum, the CEO founder of Cardano, and the CEO of Binance Exchange). In the video, there was also an airdrop or a cashback link that was promoted. Scammers often would then link their own wallet address in order to collect the funds.

On July 12, Hoskinson tweeted that it has come to his attention that a scam floating around YouTube was using his conference keynote to promote a giveaway. He emphasized that it was indeed a scam, and to whoever came across it to report the fraudulent link to YouTube. Speaking on behalf of Cardano Foundation, he also added that his firm will take legal action if needed be, against the cyber phishers. The upload has since been removed by YouTube regulators.

How to Not Fall Prey to Money Launderers

In an official blog post by Cardano Foundation, the blockchain company addressed the issue of online scamming and fraudulent individuals who associated themselves with Cardano. This dilemma seems to be on the rise recently. The crypto company explained to their audience how to track fraudulent claims, and added that they would never ask someone to send one own’s funds to them. They also advised ADA investors to be careful:

“We strongly urge you not to send your ADA to any third-party entities which claim to have partnerships with Cardano or officials from the entities within the Cardano ecosystem.”

Cardano Foundation on the Rise

It appears as though Cardano has been hit with a lot of scams since their recent success with their altcoin ADA. The cryptocurrency skyrocketed this July, surprising crypto market experts. It is the highest price level the ADA has seen since its fluctuation in 2019. Currently, ADA is experiencing a 200% year-to-date gain, making it the biggest news on crypto markets. Cardano’s ADA cryptocurrency has been one of the top-performing tokens this year and has become the sixth-largest crypto according to CoinMarketCap.