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- Charles Hoskinson plans to bring Fortune 500 companies on board to adopt Cardano (ADA) in Africa.
- Provided the cooperation with Litecoin is successful, IOHK could aim for interoperability with Bitcoin and Dash.
In a new interview with Forkast.News, IOHK CEO, Charles Hoskinson, provided interesting insights into his strategy for 2021. The Cardano inventor claimed that Fortune 500 companies looking to expand into developing economies in Africa and the Middle East need a faster and cheaper payment system for local transactions. In Cardano, Hoskinson sees the ideal solution, which is why he will “aggressively pursue Fortune 500” to get the largest U.S. companies on board and sell ADA to them as a solution.
A Fortune 500 company needs new tools to be able to get into that market and work with those consumers. We can facilitate that because we’ve been in those jurisdictions, especially Ethiopia, for example, for over three years.
For some time now, Hoskinson has been pointing out the huge potential of the African continent for distributed ledger technology and digital currencies. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the top five fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa.
Accordingly Hoskinson said that there is a growing adoption of cryptocurrencies among young Africans and a lot of interest in Cardano from African countries. As the IOHK CEO revealed last October, there are already central banks in Central Africa that have approached IOHK and proposed “doing something” in terms of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
In the interview with Forkast.News, Hoskinson emphasized in this sense that Africa is “ripe for decentralized finance” (DeFi) due to its fragmented economy and underdeveloped banking system. Referencing the recruitment of Fortune500 companies, he stated:
How do you attract the Fortune 500? You do it by saying, ‘Hey, would you like access to the 100 million customers on my platform who now have money and would like to consume your products?’
Will Cardano become the “Ethereum killer” in 2021?
Cardano has carried the “Ethereum killer” label for quite some time. The words could also be followed by great deeds in 2021. Hoskinson , who is a former co-founder of Ethereum, stoked the rivalry with his predecessor project several times last year by pointing out the shortcomings of the Ethereum blockchain and outlining the advantages of the future Cardano Blockchain. After years of research, these will be integrated into the mainnet in 2021 with the Goguen era:
Now, we’re starting to talk about smart contracts [at Cardano]. We’re starting to talk about a lot more use and utility, above and beyond just metadata and store value count. So this is the age of DApps, the age of DeFi. And it’s going to be really exciting to see Cardano explore that and fight for that. […]
All things considered, I think it’s probably the most productive year we’ve ever had. And I look forward to 2021. If we can keep this momentum and extend it, we’re really going to give Ethereum and the rest of these guys a run for their money.
Cardano, however, is not only trying to bridge to the African continent, as Hoskinson pointed out, but within the blockchain world. For example, IOHK is currently working with the Litecoin Foundation to achieve interoperability between blockchains.
If it works with Litecoin, it’s probably going to work with Bitcoin, or Dash, or any of these other guys.
While Cardano is aiming for a future with interoperable blockchains, Hoskinson stressed that cryptography needs to evolve before the advent of quantum computing and quantum technology.
You would like to upgrade your cryptography and start using post-quantum crypto — so cryptography that’s immune to quantum computers — as soon as possible.
As for blockchain technologie, the IOHK CEO believes quantum computers pose no threat. With a “competent blockchain architect,” the threat can be prevented, he said. Instead, Hoskinson predicts “huge problems” for Internet communications:
They’re going to cause huge harm to nation states that are trying to preserve secrets. Also, Satoshi’s private keys can be broken so people can start signing with Satoshi’s PGP Key, if they wanted to.
