{"id":87589,"date":"2023-11-28T14:15:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T12:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=87589"},"modified":"2025-09-13T12:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T09:48:15","slug":"charles-hoskinson-and-adam-back-clash-over-bitcoin-decentralisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/charles-hoskinson-and-adam-back-clash-over-bitcoin-decentralisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Hoskinson and Adam Back clash over Bitcoin decentralisation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Founder <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-cardano-ada\">Cardano<\/a> Charles Hoskinson expressed confusion at the <span data-descr=\"U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission\" class=\"old_tooltip\">SEC<\/span>&#8216;s stance regarding the agency&#8217;s apparent lack of attention to Bitcoin and its treatment of other cryptocurrencies as securities. The response came from industry pioneer and Blockstream CEO Adam Back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IOHK_Charles?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@IOHK_Charles<\/a> it&#8217;s very simple: Bitcoin did not do an ICO, most people thought it had no value, it was mined from zero, it is decentralised, there is no CEO, ICO warchested &#8220;foundation&#8221;, incorporation etc. so cardano, eth etc clearly pas howey, Bitcoin is a commodity and does not<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Adam Back (@adam3us) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adam3us\/status\/1729265692514676784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Hoskinson questioned the decentralisation of digital gold. He suggested that for a <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-51-attack\">51% attack<\/a>, it would take only three subpoenas to the owners of the largest mining pools.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abExplain this [the difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies], as if I were five years old. Pass<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-howey-test-and-how-does-it-apply-to-cryptocurrencies\"><em> <\/em><em>the Howey test<\/em><\/a><em>\u00bb,<\/em> \u2014 he proposed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Back responded, pointing to the absence of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-an-ico-and-can-you-profit-from-it\">ICO<\/a> for digital gold as the reason: why the SEC does not treat it as a security.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abIt\u2019s very simple: Bitcoin did not conduct an ICO, most people thought it had no value, the asset was mined from zero, it decentralised, there is no CEO. An ICO is run by a nonprofit organisation, a corporation, etc. This applies to Cardano, Ethereum and others that pass the Howey test, in contrast to Bitcoin, which is a commodity\u00bb,<\/em> \u2014 wrote the Blockstream CEO.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hoskinson pointed out to Back the lack of an initial token distribution for Cardano.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abThe distribution [of tokens] occurred via an airdrop, then thousands of people who had never met each other traded ADA on exchanges and used Cardano for their projects. The sale of a voucher for another asset outside the United States, priced in Bitcoin terms and in yen, without the participation of at least one American resident, is not an ICO\u00bb,<\/em> \u2014 Hoskinson retorted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Cardano&#8217;s founder was accused of lying, and investors were reminded of ADA&#8217;s price at its 2016 issuance.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Stop lying.<\/p>\n<p>Cardano&#8217;s ICO price was $0.0024 per token. Investors were able to acquire ADA with their Bitcoin holdings.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bitcoin Lizard ? \u221e\/21M \u26a1 (@Arthur_van_Pelt) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Arthur_van_Pelt\/status\/1729270151315353869?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Back said he was confident that Hoskinson had lawyers who had advised him not to touch on certain topics.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abPremine and <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-cryptocurrency-airdrop\"><em>airdrop<\/em><\/a><em>, as well as market making, meet the criteria of an ICO. Plus the obvious dependence of the management team on profit expectations, etc., in line with the Howey test&#8217;s conditions\u00bb,<\/em> \u2014 he noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In November, in the SEC&#8217;s case against Kraken, the regulator added to a list several tokens it considered unregistered investment contracts, including ALGO, MATIC and NEAR.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the Commission accused Coinbase of violating securities laws. The agency said a number of exchange-listed tokens fit that definition: SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH and NEXO.<\/p>\n<p>IN the SEC&#8217;s case against Binance, the regulator classified as securities the following assets: SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO and AXS.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Charles Hoskinson and Ripple&#8217;s CTO David Schwartz sparred over corruption at the SEC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Founder Charles Hoskinson expressed confusion at the SEC&#8217;s stance regarding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as securities. The response came from industry pioneer and Blockstream CEO Adam Back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[689,18,1401,471,2142,36],"class_list":["post-87589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-adam-back","tag-bitcoin","tag-cardano-ada","tag-charles-hoskinson","tag-howey-test","tag-regulation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"38","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87591,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87589\/revisions\/87591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}