Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Admits to Rejecting a 293,000 ETH Allocation

Founding Ethereum member and Cardano co-creator Charles Hoskinson admits to declining a "Founder's allocation" of 293,000 ETH. Making the declaration in a recent "Surprise" AMA on his Youtube channel, Hoskinson further asserted that he has never held any ETH - despite being one of the original founding members of Ethereum.

"I do not own any Ether. I have zero Ether. Historical fact - I've never actually owned any Ether my entire life. I was entitled to 293 thousand Ether - I didn't take it. I told them: give it to someone else."

Where the figure may appear generous, it constitutes less than 2.5 % of the project's initial allocation - nearly 12 million ETH being set aside solely for the Ethereum Foundation during the July 2014 initial public sale.

Today, Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, worth more than $45 billion at time of press.

Hoskinson did not detail his reasoning for denying the sum, yet one might point to the developer's contentious exit from the Ethereum team.

After a creative disagreement with Vitalik Buterin - who conceptualized the smart contract platform in 2013 - Hoskinson departed in June 2014.

"At the time I was pretty pissed off, Ether went up $120 billion, so what the hell do I know?".

Hoskinson's feelings of stagnation would appear to have been fleeting, however.

In 2015, the Colorado-born entrepreneur and mathematician teamed up with former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood to found prominent blockchain firm IOHK - the creators of Cardano.

Now the 8th most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Cardano's success would presumably have paved the way for Hoskinson's ascension to Forbes' 'Crypto Rich List' - his net worth estimated at $500-600 million as of February 2018.Cover Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash.