Cardano Founder Reveals Why He Owns No Public Crypto Addresses

In what is characterized as a deviation from the norm, Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson has revealed he has no public crypto addresses.

Cardano Founder Justifies His Action

For a crypto leader that is the prominent face of the Cardano blockchain, having no public addresses might have drawn criticism from members of the community. However, justifying his decision to keep only private profiles, Hoskinson noted that he chose not to keep public addresses because of security reasons. 

He buttressed his point noting that different people may choose to send money to the public addresses from a sanctioned country without his consent. He also believes that zealous senders may try to send him money from restricted channels like Tornado Cash, a situation that can notably cause his addresses to be blacklisted by the authorities.

I don't have public addresses because of security. People can send transactions without my consent from sanctioned nations and wallets like the tornado cash issue to me and thus blacklist my account. This is why I like the concept of contingent settlement

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) July 29, 2023

The Cardano founder had to come out to clear the air because he was called out by a community member who pointed out that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has a public wallet which can be attributed to the support for the blockchain network he represents. 

While Hoskinson has a good justification for his choice, he noted that the challenges that are associated with keeping a public wallet are one of the reasons why he prefers the concept of contingent settlement. Hoskinson’s clarification has been received by mixed reactions with more people wondering whether or not he has other plans in view for the contingent settlement he mentioned.

Benefits Associated with Public Addresses

Having a public address is not an uncommon thing for leaders in the digital currency ecosystem. Projects, especially memecoins that are looking to establish on the protocol often typically send a percentage of their tokens to a top leader’s public address to gain trust in the community.

Vitalik Buterin is one crypto founder that has enjoyed this benefit to a very great extent, with protocols sending as much as $1 billion in memecoins to his addresses in the height of the past bull season.

In an unusual manner, he donated these funds to charity back in 2021 as reported at the time by Coingape.