“The schools say he didn’t graduate from undergrad. Also, he has said multiple times, including in our interview, that he dropped out from a Ph.D. program,” claimed crypto-journalist Laura Shin.
A debate has surfaced online following claims that Cardano founder and Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson may have fudged the specifics of his educational background.
While the issue is hardly a major scandal, it concerns conflicting reports around whether Hoskinson dropped out of a Number Theory-focused Ph.D. program — as he suggested — or if he embellished the story. Crypto journalist and Unchained Podcast host Laura Shin suggested in her new book and on social media that he never finished an undergraduate degree or enrolled for a Ph.D.
The dispute started on Sunday after a Twitter user stated they were reading Shin’s book “The Cryptopians” to get a rundown of the early days of Hoskinson and Cardano as reported in the book.
Hoskinson responded to the post by stating:
“Great work of fiction. Tough market to beat George R.R. Martin and Tolkien, but we wish her well.”
Shin promptly fired back at Cardano‘s founder, as she questioned “speaking of fiction, do you want to address the discrepancies between your claims of dropping out of a PhD program and the schools‘ assertions that you were enrolled as an undergrad?”
The journalist’s book was launched on Feb. 22. In it, she stated that she contacted both the Metropolitan State University of Denver “which doesn’t have a graduate math program” and the University of Colorado, where Hoskinson previously studied. According to Shin, both institutions stated that the Cardano founder studied as an undergraduate, but didn’t earn a degree from either.
“The schools say he didn’t graduate from undergrad. Also, he has said multiple times, including in our interview, that he dropped out from a PhD program.”
“The schools say he didn’t graduate from undergrad. Also, he has said multiple times, including in our interview, that he dropped out from a PhD program.”
The community debated whether Hoskinson’s wording about not completing a Ph.D. could be technically true, but a little misleading. However, Shin also pointed to an interview with him where he explicitly said he dropped out of a Ph.D. program.
During the interview, Shin asked Hoskinson whether he was getting a master‘s or a Ph.D. when he first heard about Bitcoin. The founder stated that:
“Yeah, I was a grad student. I was trying to get a PhD and I ended up dropping out and never finished.”
