Charles Hoskinson: Cardano has the edge over Facebook in emerging markets

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson sat down with Finance Magnates for an interview to highlight Cardano's latest developments and to give his views of Facebook's controversial Libra project. Firstly, he stressed the importance of cryptocurrency in emerging markets:

"Emerging markets are where cryptocurrencies matter. When I look at the developed world, I don't care. It's highly regulated and, in many cases, a rigged system. If I decide to compete with a tech company, they can just push me out via regulation."

Speaking on Cardano's Shelley update, Hoskinson talked about its importance since it transfers governance control from IOHK to the Cardano community, making it completely decentralized. Hoskinson said that the actual update will go live later this year:

"It'll be this year. But exactly when is hard to say. Delays happen. Unexpected things happen. There may be some things we can accelerate but creating software is hard."

He also took the time to address the criticisms that Cardano has received because of the delays:

"I also think the community has been exceedingly unfair with their criticism of our deadlines...There are people saying we're incompetent, that we don't know what we're doing. And there's a lot of people on Reddit and Twitter and other things who have said things that are just crazy. "

He also shed light on how Cardano measures up against Facebook's controversial Libra. According to him, Facebook gives "nothing in return":

"I am not entering a market and looking to extract value from people. Facebook has to come into countries it doesn't know a lot about and convinces them to enslave themselves to an economic monopoly and give nothing in return. And their only pitch is that you'll pay less on fees."