The company that built Cardano is attempting a harder trick: turning peer-reviewed blockchain research into products people can use, while gradually handing more of the machinery to independent teams.

Charles Hoskinson is the founder of Cardano and CEO of Input Output (IOHK), one of the five original co-founders of Ethereum, and a polarizing figure in cryptocurrency who left Ethereum over a for-profit vs. nonprofit dispute. He now runs a peer-reviewed blockchain platform, owns an 11,000-acre buffalo ranch in Wyoming, funds alien-hunting expeditions, donated $20 million to Carnegie Mellon for formal mathematics research, and is pioneering anti-aging medicine while building political influence through his Wyoming Integrity PAC.