Charles Hoskinson: Cardano – A Third Generation Smart Contract Blockchain

We are joined by Charles Hoskinson, who played an early role in developing Ethereum and BitShares, and is currently the CEO of IOHK. IOHK is an engineering company that undertakes cryptocurrency research, contributes development efforts to the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, and is spearheading the release of Cardano – a third generation blockchain protocol. IOHK has made the news recently after the publication of fundamental research papers on the Proofs of Proof of Work and the Ouroboros PoS algorithm, and its recruitment of highly rated academics.

Topics covered in this episode:

• IOHK’s role in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, and how Ethereum Classic differs from Cardano
• Cardano as a “”third generation blockchain”” and what this means
• Governance system of Cardano and the challenges behind developing a decentralized governance system
• Ouroboros PoS algorithm – why was it developed and what’s special about it
• Ouroboros Genesis: how full nodes can be bootstrapped without requiring checkpoints
• Cardano’s bet on K framework for smart contract execution

Episode links:

• IOHK analysis of the Dash governance system
• Ouroboros Genesis intro by Prof Aggelos Kiayias
• Ouroboros technical paper
• Ouroboros Praos technical paper
• Algorand
• Proofs of Proof of Work
• K Framework formal analysis technical paper
• K framework website

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy and Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/234