Cardano: IOHK to Rope In Fortune 500 Enterprises for Adoption in Africa

While speaking to forkast.New, Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK Foundation, provided scintillating glimpses about his plan for the year. The main person behind the creation of Cardano blockchain asserted that Fortune 500 enterprises intending to extend their reach in emerging economies in Africa and Middle East require a quicker and cost-effective payment platform for local dealings.

Hoskinson believes that Cardano can fit the role and that is why he continues to “aggressively” bring the US enterprises onboard by offering them ADA as the best possible payment 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 a while now, Hoskinson has been canvassing Africa’s big potential for distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrencies. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), before the outbreak of coronavirus infections, has assessed that the top five economies with fastest growth is in Africa.

As per Hoskinson the utilization of cryptos is on the rise amongst African youngsters and there is a lot of enthusiasm to learn about Cardano from the African continent. Last October, the CEO of IOHK disclosed that Central Africa based central banks have got in touch with IOHK and suggested to take steps in the direction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Hoskinson further stressed that the continent is “ripe for decentralized finance” (DeFi) due its nascent banking framework and segmented economy. Citing the efforts to bring in Fortune 500 enterprises, Hoskinson said:

“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?’”

For the last few years, Cardano has been referred as the “Ethereum killer.” There is an opportunity for Cardano to make it true this year. Hoskinson, who was also involved in the Ethereum project in its initial stages, had kindled bitter war of words with Ethereum blockchain project several times in the past by underlining the issues faced by the blockchain and highlighting the advantages of the Cardano Blockchain, which is going to undergo drastic changes. After years of studies, the aforesaid features will be incorporated in the mainnet this year along with Goguen upgrade.

“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, nevertheless, is not only attempting to fill the void in Africa, but within the blockchain industry. For illustration, IOHK is presently cooperating with Litecoin Foundation to attain 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 intends to create a future with blockchains that are compatible with each other, Hoskinson emphasized the need for updating cryptography before the arrival of quantum computers.

“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.”

With respect to blockchain technologies, the IOHK CEO trusts that quantum computers will not turn out to be a threat. He believes that a blockchain can be safeguarded from quantum computers with a “competent blockchain architect.” On the contrary, Hoskinson forecasts “huge problems” for internet to arise because of quantum computers.

“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.”