- Charles Hoskinson talked to DL News about his investments in glow-in-the-dark botany and friendship with Snoop Dogg's son.
- The Cardano founder said his net worth is $1.2 billion.
- 'I just love solving hard problems.'
Charles Hoskinson, founder of the Cardano blockchain, likes to talk crypto.
The 36-year-old billionaire also likes to chat about aliens. He financed an expedition to Papua New Guinea in 2023 to see if an interstellar object was potentially made by extraterrestrials. (It wasn’t.)
And he likes to wax on about bison. He owns an 11,000-acre ranch in Wyoming, which supports up to 600 of the docile grazers.
“You can’t do cowboy shit with bison,” he explained to DL News in an interview. “Bison just do whatever the fuck they want to do.”
Hoskinson, who traces part of his family to Florence, Italy, joked that he may be related to the Medicis, the powerful banking clan who commissioned work from the likes of Leonardo da Vinci.
“They had a lot of kids, man,” he said.
In other words, this crypto captain of industry is a true Renaissance man.
‘Hard problems’
Hoskinson may not be the ruler of an Italian city state, but he certainly has capital.
In 2017, he helped launch Cardano, a layer 1 blockchain that aims to challenge Ethereum, which he also helped found.
While Cardano is often labelled a “zombie chain,” or blockchain with little activity compared to other layer 1s like Ethereum or Solana, the cryptocurrency is valued at $12.5 billion, according to DefiLlama.
“It’s a juggernaut that will drag this industry kicking and screaming if it has to towards solving the real-world economic, political, and social issues we all face,” Hoskinson said in June, in response to claims that the blockchain isn’t relevant.
Still, it’s Hoskinson’s extracurricular investments that have caught the eye of crypto users. On a recent morning in Singapore, Hoskinson spoke at length about what drives his eclectic interests.
“I just love solving hard problems,” he said.
Other crypto founders have also spent their fortunes on colourful purchases.
Gavin Wood, another Ethereum co-founder, has invested in his DJ career.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, purchased a tank with three blacktip reef sharks for his crypto exchange’s office in Hong Kong. And Yat Siu, chairman of crypto conglomerate Animoca Brands, bought a violin once owned by Catherine the Great, the Russian empress.
Far-out projects
Yet, Hoskinson, who owns a private jet, a Blackhawk helicopter, and said his net worth is approximately $1.2 billion, stands apart as a patron of far-out projects.
“I’m friends with Steve Wolfram and all these other guys,” he said, referring to the well-known computer scientist. “They always have these pet problems that they carry with them, and when you collaborate with them, you can kind of make those pet problems, your problems.”
‘If you want to solve global warming... it makes sense to get involved in genetically engineering plants.’
— Charles Hoskinson
In person, Hoskinson doesn’t come across like a flashy Silicon Valley mogul but rather as an avuncular academic.
After growing up in Hawaii, he went on to become one of the eight original co-founders of Ethereum in the early 2010s. Soon enough, tensions mounted with Vitalik Buterin, the blockchain network’s primary architect.
Hoskinson wanted Ethereum’s founders to create a for-profit entity and accept venture investments. Buterin wanted to maintain a non-profit organisation.
Later in 2014, Hoskinson left Ethereum, and, the next year, he founded, along with former colleague Jeremy Wood, Input Output, or IOHK.
Styled as a general-purpose firm that did all things blockchain, IOHK’s most well-known creation is Cardano.
It also has its hands in a number of other projects, including Midnight, a Cardano sidechain, as well as Daedalus, a Cardano wallet.
Glow-in-the-dark weed
Hoskinson’s interests aren’t just relegated to cryptography or blockchain. He also likes glow-in-the-dark plants.
“If you want to solve global warming or you want to improve the environment, it makes sense to get involved in genetically engineering plants,” he said.
Bespoke plants can create organic lighting as well as sequester carbon, eliminate toxic chemicals, and provide other environmental boons, he said.
He showed DL News a picture on his phone showing him smiling in the dark and holding one neon green plant. Cultivated tobacco and thale cress are some of the species his team have illuminated, he said.
‘If it has a lot of THC, it glows red.’
— Charles Hoskinson
While the Cardano founder declined to elaborate on the biological mechanisms that make his plants radiate light, he did say his team uses CRISPR, a novel technique that uses enzymes to edit genes.
Hoskinson added that he’ll be able to publicly show off the plants in a year. He also alluded to bioengineering glow-in-the-dark cannabis.
“If it has a lot of THC, it glows red,” he mused, referring to the active ingredient in marijuana. “If it has just a little bit, it glows green.”
Hoskinson is friends with Champ Medici, Snoop Dogg’s son. Had he spoken with the weed-obsessed rapper about growing glowing ganja?
“Maybe,” he said. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Longevity science
Hoskinson is also big on injecting himself with stem cells, self-renewing cells that play a vital role in medical research.
His father and brother are both doctors. Hoskinson invested $100 million to establish a facility in Gillette, Wyoming, called the Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic.
It will begin conducting its first research trial monitored by the US Food and Drug Administration hopefully next year, the Cardano founder said.
Hoskinson, like many wealthy tech founders, is interested in longevity science.
The research trial will evaluate the efficacy of stem cell injections combined with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or when patients breathe pure oxygen in a pressurised chamber.
“If my hypothesis is right, we can reverse ageing by over 10 years,” he predicted.
One of the trial’s first subjects? Hoskinson himself.
“I’m going to be the first guy, the very first guy,” Hoskinson said. “I’m getting fat and old and it would be nice to live a little longer and be healthier.”
Doctors have already extracted his stem cells, and his microscopic Hoskinsons are already replicating in his clinic.
The Cardano founder will begin to receive injections when the FDA approves clinical trials, he said.
Godzilla
But Hoskinson’s potential rejuvenation as patient zero isn’t the only medical project he has planned.
By next summer, he plans to expand his Wyoming health centre to 70,000 square feet and incorporate cardiology, radiology, and immunology practices, among others.
And, like any good Medici, he’ll populate the expanded clinic with “priceless artworks.”
There will be “four-dimensional objects,” an “infinity room” inspired by the legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, and a diorama featuring a six-foot Godzilla.
Why Godzilla?
“Just because,” he said. “We went insane.”
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.