| Notes |
Early life
Hoskinson was born in Hawaii to a family of doctors, and grew up on Maui. He moved to Colorado during his childhood.[8][9]
Career
He attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory.[10]
In 2013 Hoskinson quit a consulting job to begin a project called the Bitcoin Education Project. According to Hoskinson, "the limited supply makes [Bitcoin] like digital gold".[11][12]
Ethereum
Hoskinson joined the Ethereum founding team (one of eight original founders) with Vitalik Buterin in late 2013.[5] Hoskinson left Ethereum in 2014 after a dispute about accepting venture capital and need for a more formal governing structure.[5][13] Following his departure from Ethereum he took a six month sabbatical.[11]
IOHK & Cardano
Hoskinson was approached by former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood to form a new project called IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), an engineering and research company that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains.[11] IOHK's key project is Cardano, a public blockchain and smart-contract platform that hosts the ADA cryptocurrency.[11][14]
In 2018, Hoskinson told The New Yorker that "I'm basically a billionaire. At this point, I couldn't care less about those six months of my life with Ethereum."[13] Charles Hoskinson claims Cardano, using proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work, is more energy efficient than Bitcoin.[15]
BitShares
Hoskinson co-founded BitShares, which is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that is part of the Microsoft Azure blockchain.[16] According to Hoskinson, it is organized as a "decentralized autonomous corporation" (DAC).[17][better source needed]
University involvement
In 2017, Hoskinson and IOHK sponsored research labs focusing on blockchain technology at the University of Edinburgh and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.[18][19] In 2020, Hoskinson opened a blockchain research project at the University of Wyoming. The collaboration involved a gift of $500,000 for the University of Wyoming to support the development of blockchain technology through the creation of a UWYO-IOHK Advanced Blockchain and Development Laboratory. IOHK also has ties to the University of Edinburgh with their Chief Scientist, Aggelos Kiayias[20][21]
Views on Bitcoin
According to Hoskinson, Bitcoin's growth in power consumption (see Bitcoin#Energy consumption) has been inevitable stating: "Bitcoin's energy consumption has more than quadrupled since the beginning of its last peak in 2017 and it is set to get worse because energy inefficiency is built into bitcoin's DNA".[15] When confronted with a University of Cambridge study showing Bitcoin's 110 TWh annual energy consumption Hoskinson commented "That’s an unfathomable amount of electricity".[22]
See also
Gavin Wood – Ethereum co-founder and CTO
Joseph Lubin – Ethereum co-founder
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