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Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson shared his damning thoughts on the legacy financial system, concluding that cryptocurrency will take over because it offers a better way.

The Banking System Brought This On Itself

Much is said about the enmity between cryptocurrency and banking. While the banking system towers above cryptocurrency in terms of both capitalization and the number of users, Hoskinson believes this is a situation that will change.

“You can’t go back; you can’t change that. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle. Central banks will fade away, it’s just going to happen. Your conventional legacy banks are going to fade away.”

His reason for thinking this comes down to the nepotism and profiteering embedded within the banking system. All of which conspire to squeeze the “little guy,” often in circumstances of desperation and lack of choice.

“It wasn’t us who charged 15% to some of the poorest people in the world to move their money home to take care of their parents. It was the people who ran the old system. It wasn’t us, in this industry, who charge 85% interest to lend $100 to a subsistence farmer, desperately trying to survive after a drought.”

Hoskinson further laid scorn on the banking system’s complicity with criminal activity. Referencing general instances of laundering drug money and oil for food programs, Hoskinson turned the tables by saying cryptocurrency is the remedy to fix this.

“Never allow them to say ours is the industry that’s the risk. Ours is the industry that’s the antidote to the excesses, corruption, and nepotism that we’ve found. This is an industry of frustration that has now been replaced by an industry of creativity and innovation. We’re going to change the world.”

Cardano Gears Up For Smart Contracts

In terms of leading the charge against the banking system, Cardano is up there as a project capable of rising to the challenge. But, like the whole of the cryptocurrency industry, it is a work in progress.

Nonetheless, last week saw developers Input Output Global (IOG) reveal its progress on shipping the final phase of Cardano’s smart contract rollout.

Currently, the firm is working on the “Alonzo Blue” stage which involves Plutus pioneers and some “alpha partners” working on the first-ever Alonzo testnet.

The “alpha partners” have been drafted to build a range of dapps including oracles, DEXs, lending and borrowing, stablecoins, NFTs, and DeFi tools.

During this stage, the goal is to uncover and fix bugs to stabilize the code environment. The remaining “Alonzo White and Purple” stages will see the testnet open up a wider group of testers. At the “Alonzo Purple” stage, the protocol is almost ready for public rollout, which is expected in August.

As Hoskinson alluded to, change is coming, and thanks to smart contracts, Cardano will be one of the cryptocurrency projects eating away at the legacy system.

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The Africa Special event aired on Thursday, showcasing Cardano developments on the continent. At the time of writing, the show has hit over 120k views, with IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson calling it the most popular show they’ve done to date.

Although the response was largely positive, with a wide range of mainstream and crypto publications covering the event, Hoskinson spoke about a distinct lack of coverage from CoinDesk. The Executive Editor at CoinDesk, Marc Hochstein, said they are still waiting on a response from Ethiopia’s Ministry.

“media response was incredible as well, we were interviewed by the Financial Times, Cointelegraph, my lord they actually covered it, CityAM, New York Times, and dozens of others. More news will come trickling out. Notably absent, I can’t see it right now, I don’t know if it’s covered or not. I didn’t check my media list, was CoinDesk.”

Cardano’s African Strategy

Cardano has been plugging away at blockchain adoption in Africa for many years now.

Hoskinson said he founded IOG with the goal of equalizing the developed and developing worlds. Adding that developed nations take for granted many things such as payments, insurance, credit, etc. In contrast, poor infrastructure in developing nations makes even simple tasks, such as getting paid, a laborious process.

“I started my company in February 2015 with the dream of delivering economic identity to those that don’t have it. The reality is, the world lives still in two different configurations. One for the developed and one for the developing.”

News of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education partnering with Cardano via the Atala PRISM solution broke before the Africa Special event. The deal aims to boost education and employment prospects through a blockchain-based student-teacher attainment recording system. It will digitally verify grades and allow for the monitoring of school performance.

The most prominent announcement during the Africa Special event was news of infrastructure development in Tanzania. It will see a tie-in with World Mobile to provide mobile internet access and financial inclusion infrastructure to enable banking, loans, insurance, etc.

Hoskinson Defends The Assertion He’s Pulling a Fast One

Despite the monumental achievements made by IOG in Africa, Hoskinson highlighted the lack of coverage from CoinDesk on the matter.

Various representatives from the publication have skirted the issue, with its Executive Editor, Hochstein, asking for evidence of the claims directly “from the horse’s mouth.”

That’s an embassy which isn’t the ministry. It would be weird to rely on a tweet from a US embassy in another country for confirmation of what HUD or DOD is supposedly doing. We need to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

— M a r c H o c h s t e i n (@MarcHochstein) April 29, 2021

Hoskinson felt this degree of fact-checking is an extreme request considering the multiple sources of evidence already available, including directly from Ethiopia’s Minister of Education, Dr.-Ing. Getahun Mekuria, who spoke during Thursday’s show.

“Apparently, having the Minister appear on camera talking about the relationship, the official government channels tweeting about the relationship, and major publications like the New York Times is not good enough for this editor at CoinDesk for an official announcement.”

Hoskinson labeled the response bizarre and claimed there’s more to the snub than waiting for confirmation of facts.

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In distinguishing real-world use versus speculative investing, IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson said he derides DeFi in its current state. The comments come as Cardano announced securing a contract with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education for a blockchain-based ID system.

This accomplishment is part of Cardano’s pan-African strategy that intends to improve lives by providing new systems. By tapping into real-world use for everyday laypeople, Cardano hopes to differentiate itself from the competition. But is this a strategy that will prevail?

“We look to our industry and we think about things like DeFi. I laugh at DeFi at the moment. Not because I think the projects are bad, or the products are bad, or the teams are not motivated. But because they don’t have real markets.”

Cardano Lands The Bird

After months of teasing, and even before the Africa Special event, the bird has finally landed. Yesterday, Hoskinson took to social media announcing a partnership deal with the Ethiopian government.

It will see the implementation of a blockchain-based national student and teacher ID system to record and digitally verify grades and remotely monitor school performance. The idea behind it is to boost nationwide education and employment.

African Operations Director at IOG, John O’Connor, believes the partnership could be the beginning of Africa’s revival as a global economic powerhouse. A time not seen since the Mali and Songhai Empires around the 14th and 15th centuries.

“Ethiopia’s blockchain-based education transformation is a key milestone on IOHK’s mission to provide economic identities and employment, social and financial services for the digitally excluded”

The West Has no Need For Cryptocurrency

Developed nations have a legacy infrastructure in place, making blockchain technology an unnecessary luxury in the west. For most western people, cryptocurrency is primarily being used as a speculative investment.

Hoskinson reiterated this point by describing the frivolity of cryptocurrency through a western lens.

“No-one in America wakes up at the moment, or Germany, or France, and England, and says, “Oh boy, I just can’t wait to get a car loan on a decentralized peer-to-peer lending network.””

He added that most people don’t know what peer-to-peer lending, or DeFi, is, let alone how to access it. The reason why comes down to the existence of legacy infrastructure. But in regions with no infrastructure, the demand for blockchain-based services is much greater out of necessity.

“The vast majority of people use things out of necessity or convenience. When we look to people who have no access to credit, the reality is their first loan is likely going to come from a peer-to-peer marketplace, and likely be denominated in a cryptocurrency-based asset, not a local currency.”

Hoskinson believes DeFi demand will come from people who need it the most. Not those who use it speculatively to become relatively more wealthy. In turn, it’s the overwhelming demand that will drive value, not the technology itself.

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Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said he chose Wyoming to base Input Output Global (IOG), and not Silicon Valley, because of the Valley’s “unhealthy” environment.

The comments dispel the notion that tech firms need Silicon Valley to “make it.” What’s more, his candid account of trying to integrate into that culture delivers a humbling that some say is long overdue.

Work Life Balance and the Valley https://t.co/RSGSLnjADb

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) April 14, 2021

Silicon Valley Fosters “Unhealthy” Living

Silicon Valley is found in the San Francisco Bay Area’s southern region and acts as a global center for technology and innovation.

It’s home to many established high-tech companies, including Google, Apple, and Adobe, to name a few. As well as thousands of startups looking to benefit from proximity to these giant megacorps. In particular, the venture capital money that’s flush in the region.

“In 2020, $156.2 billion of venture capital was raised in the U.S., PitchBook reports. Of the total, 22.7% of the dealmaking occurred in the Bay Area, and 39.4% of deal value was invested in Bay area-headquartered companies.”

Having said that, Silicon Valley, and the VC industry, have not been immune to the panic situation. A report by Pitchbook on the VC outlook for 2021 states the Bay area’s share of total VC count will fall below 20% for the first time in history.

When asked why IOG, formerly IOHK, didn’t locate in Silicon Valley, Hoskinson said he felt the pull when starting as an entrepreneur. But having spent a week there integrating into the culture, his experience was far from positive.

“… What I saw over eight years ago was a very, for the lack of a better term, unhealthy environment. There was copious drug use, a lot of people were sleep-deprived. And there was this endless desire to be something. And most of the people I met were so thoroughly fake, there was just no notion of a genuine person…”

Cardano Benefits From Slow Pace of Wyoming Life

IOG relocated its headquarters from Hong Kong to Wyoming in 2018. The state economy of Wyoming is heavily tied to mineral extraction, tourism, and agriculture, especially cow and sheep farming.

But in 2019, Wyoming enacted 13 blockchain laws making it the only U.S. state with a welcoming legal framework for blockchain companies to flourish.

Speaking on why Wyoming is preferred over Silicon Valley, Hoskinson said the lifestyle and work-life balance are more in line with his way of being, which can be summed up in one word, authentic.

“What’s so magical about that lifestyle I have is that after my workday ends, I go to my farm. A farm is like the ultimate truth factory. There is no bullsh*t when you’re in agriculture.”

The panic situation has forced many to reconsider what is wanted and important in life. And living in nature is a lifestyle trend that’s gaining favor among those done with big city living.

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Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson has announced the formation of an internal action force aimed at countering scammers. This comes as a report from fraud prevention firm Bolster showed cryptocurrency scams almost doubled in 2020.

“One of the things we’ve been thinking about is setting up some sort of dedicated body in the Cardano ecosystem that does nothing but builds tools to help people report scams and propagate the knowledge that a scam has occurred.”

The Cardano Anti-Scam Task Force Nabs First Case

Last month, a frustrated Hoskinson hosted a live stream in which he warned the Cardano community of giveaway scams. He reiterated the point, one made many times before, that he nor Cardano will ever giveaway ADA.

“If you fall for this, you will lose your ADA, these are criminals, these are scammers, these are people who are trying to steal from you. Use common f*cking sense. You don’t get something for free. You don’t get something for nothing.”

Cardano is now taking an active role in combating the fraudsters with the newly formed anti-scam task force. Not only is it tasked with reporting and spreading awareness of scams, but Hoskinson also spoke about an investigative element to their operations as well.

“… do some targetted investigations into ventures that have entered into the Cardano space, that we feel may be fraudulent.”

Without going into specifics, Hoskinson said, following complaints raised by community members, the task force has investigated a fund suspected of fraud. Initial results indicate the fund in question may be a scam. However, he did not disclose the name of the fund at this time.

“We started conducting an investigation and the preliminary results indicate that that fund may actually be a scam. So in two weeks time, we’re going to release our first output of this internal working group.”

Crypto Scams Predicted to Get Worse in 2021

Fraudsters are flocking to crypto as markets continue booming. Research conducted by Bolster confirms that cryptocurrency fraud is on the rise. The firm points out that this is one of the most significant barriers to mainstream success.

Co-Founder and CTO of Bolster Shashi Prakash said crypto scams are the fastest-growing category of scams. He warned that this is just the start of a “new wave of digital theft campaigns.”

We continue to see scammers being opportunistic and designing campaigns focused on real-time, surging trends when people are likely not to be on guard because it’s so new.”

By analyzing 300 million websites, Bolster found more than 400,000 related to crypto scams over the last year. The firm predicts this figure will go up by 75% for this year.

Other key findings note that fake prizes, giveaways, or sweepstakes were the most prolific type of scam, with Bitcoin, Chainlink, and Ethereum being the top three most targetted tokens.

The Cardano anti-scam task force is a step in the right direction. However, as Hoskinson mentioned, it’s no substitute for common sense.

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At yesterday’s Cardano 360 event, IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson gave an update on the long-awaited Alonzo upgrade. Due to stress testing and exchange integration, Hoskinson expects a rollout in mid-August.

IOHK had previously penciled in a date of the end of March 2021 for this to happen. A five-month delay hasn’t gone down well with some sections of the community.

Cardano Smart Contracts Won’t Be Ready This Month

The Goguen phase is the great equalizer in terms of bringing smart contracts to Cardano. It was split into three development stages.

First was Allegra, which enabled token locking; this laid the foundation for smart contracts by bringing metadata functionality to record the specific purpose of tokens. Then there was Mary, which introduced the ability to create user-defined tokens. The final piece is Alonzo, which integrates the extended UTXO model with the Plutus smart contract language.

During Cardano 360, Hoskinson gave a timeline for Alonzo’s completion. He said this process requires integration into the ledger and node code, which is happening now through to April. At the same time, “alpha partners” will be running acceptance criteria and tests.

“What’s occurring right now, all throughout March and all throughout April is that integration into the node to get a CLI. As that integration is happening, partners are being brought in, and these are alpha partners, so they’re very close and deep in court of company.”

Once done, by the end of April or early May, IOHK will be ready to launch the Alonzo testnet. Hoskinson mentioned that large cohorts of programming professionals and Plutus pioneers are ready to stress test the network.

As Plutus was built by an independent team, in parallel with Shelley, Hoskinson warned there could be some “rough edges” in that integration. Hence QA and user acceptance testing are needed to circumvent any problems in that respect.

Expected August Rollout Leads to Backlash

All of the above is scheduled to finish by the end of June. At this point, the final stage involves bringing all of the stakeholders up to speed. Hoskinson gives this a four to six-week time frame, taking us into mid-August for the Alonzo hard fork.

“If that occurs, what we will do is wait four weeks minimum for our partners, the Coinbases, the Binances, Yoroi, all these other people, who have infrastructure that needs to upgrade that needs to upgrade, test, and modernize for Alonzo before we do the Alonzo hard fork.”

The feedback from the Cardano community has been mixed. On the one hand, some have expressed positivity over the thoroughness of work going into Alonzo. But others have slammed the delay.

On that, Hoskinson noted a surge in toxicity and trolling. But he puts this down to a realization that Cardano is on track.

I’ve noticed a massive surge in toxicity, FUD, trolling, and outright slander lately. It must mean Cardano is finally perceived as a threat to the status quo and we are on the right track. Stay focused everyone, the next six months are going to be a rough but rewarding ride

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 26, 2021

Despite the delay to Alonzo, the market did not react badly. Today, ADA is up 8% to $1.17.

Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Replying to remarks over the lack of dapps running on Cardano, IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson responded by saying demand is so high his firm cannot handle the applications flooding in. In many cases, as a strategy to cope with the demand, applications are being rejected.

Some Thoughts on DApps https://t.co/0rHRxdblPP

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 21, 2021

Goguen is Coming to Cardano Very Soon

Speaking on a live stream, Hoskinson said criticisms of Cardano having no dapps are entirely unreasonable. He drew attention to sneaker and cattle authentication apps already run on the chain using just metadata features.

Although full programmability at the base layer is missing at present, he likened the fault-finding to criticizing attendance at a nightclub that hasn’t yet opened.

“Yet they say, what are the dapps running on Cardano? That’s like saying you’re opening a nightclub, you haven’t opened it yet, and you say, ‘how come no-one’s in your nightclub?’ It’s like, we’re still building it.”

Hoskinson is more than confident that once Goguen is up and running, the ecosystem will fill out accordingly. However, right now, the firm cannot deal with the demand to build dapps on Cardano. He said the only thing to do under these circumstances is to turn down applications from developers.

“As if, smart contracts come and there’ll be no demand. We’re overwhelmingly subscribed. At the moment, our company has no more capacity to service deal flow that comes in for Cardano. People come to me, unless it’s a super high-value deal and some have jumped up the queue, we actually say no and turn them down…”

What’s in The Works?

The Goguen era is expected to launch at the end of March. So far, IOHK hasn’t confirmed or denied that they will meet this deadline. Nonetheless, expectations are riding high. Once smart contracts are up and running, Cardano will be on even ground with its biggest rival, Ethereum.

Playing into the expectations, Hoskinson tweeted that this month’s Cardano 360 will be one to watch. The monthly program is scheduled to show on March 25 at 17:30GMT.

Cardano Fans, you’re really going to want to tune in to March’s Cardano 360 Episode. It’s going to be action packed!

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 21, 2021

Although the “action” could refer to any number of things in the pipeline, a confirmed Goguen rollout date would be the best-case scenario for ADA holders.

With that, in the short term, what can the community expect with Goguen? Hoskinson referred to the projects making their way through the Catalyst program. He said a slew of NFT marketplaces, stablecoin offerings, oracles, and DEXes are on the way.

“If you look at Catalyst, there are six NFT marketplaces seeking funding, there are stablecoins seeking funding, some of which have already been deployed for example, on Emurgo. Oracles seeking funding, DEXes seeking funding….”

As such, accusations that Cardano is a ghost chain hold no merit. The only question remaining is, when will Goguen launch?

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