Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Destroys 900 Billion ‘Charles’ Tokens in Live Burn
Anjali Belgaumkar31 Jan 20251 min read
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson recently took action against an unsolicited “Charles” token created by the community. In a live broadcast, Hoskinson shared his frustration with the creation of a meme token in his name, which quickly gained traction and was traded heavily in the crypto market.
Hoskinson explained that during a demonstration, he inadvertently exposed his backup wallet and, unfortunately, the crypto community saw this as an opportunity to send him tokens. One of those tokens, the “Charles” token, became particularly popular, with its market value skyrocketing in a single day.
In total, Hoskinson found himself holding a staggering 900 billion of these tokens, which he deemed worthless due to the lack of liquidity. Instead of ignoring the situation, he decided to take matters into his own hands and burn the entire supply of the token. Using a script developed with the help of his team, he transferred all the tokens to a burner address, effectively destroying them.
The burn transaction was completed live on the stream, with Hoskinson humorously acknowledging that he had just wiped out $80 million in book value. He remarked that it cost him just 1.42 ADA to destroy the tokens and that it was his way of demonstrating his incorruptibility, stating that he would never try to profit from the situation.
Hoskinson’s bold move was a statement against the unpredictable and often chaotic nature of the cryptocurrency space, as well as a reminder to the community that certain actions, like creating unsolicited tokens come with consequences. The Cardano founder wrapped up the broadcast with a message: “Don’t do that again.”
