Wyoming ranch owner Charles Hoskinson, who also is the founder of the Cardano cryptocurrency platform, has taken to social media to blast Wyoming’s process of creating its own stable token, saying that it hasn’t been transparent and unfairly excluded his company.
The criticism follows an announcement from the Wyoming Stable Token Commission announcing that it has begun taking requests for proposals from pre-qualified vendors, which it identified as Solana, Avalanche, Sui, Stellar and Ethereum. The latter includes a bullet point that it is “inclusive of layer-2 networks Polygon, Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.”
None of the other platforms include any explanatory bullet points.
Wyoming Stable Token Executive Director Anthony Apollo also said in the announcement that those are the networks the state’s Blockchain Selection Working Proup has determined to be “in-scope” for the initial deployment of Wyoming’s stable token. Stable tokens are a type of cryptocurrency where the goal is to hold a static value. In Wyoming’s case, a single stable token would be worth $1.
Apollo said his office is working on an official statement about the stable token flap with Cardano and declined an interview with Cowboy State Daily about it.
Hoskinson told Cowboy State Daily he feels blindsided by the commission’s announcement. He said it’s unfair for the state to make such a selection without having first publicly listed what the qualifications would be, giving the 30,000 or so blockchains, including his own, a fair opportunity to decide if they can meet those qualifications within the state’s timeframe.
As a consequence, Hoskinson said, the “largest Wyoming-based blockchain company in the world, with hundreds of employees in Wyoming, can’t even bid on the RFP at this point.”
Instead, Cardano added, “companies in California, New York and in Singapore — financial institutions outside of Wyoming, with no connection to Wyoming — are going to be involved in implementing the Wyoming stable coin. That’s what happened.”
In a video he posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Hoskinson said he had advocated very strongly that all the functional and non-functional requirements be published by the commission so that any cryptocurrency platform that wanted to vie for development of the stable token could build a prototype demonstrating whether their ecosystem could support Wyoming’s requirements.
“Initially, this appeared to be the direction that the commission was pushing,” Hoskinson said. “And then, suddenly, the executive director and commission just decided to create their own criteria and act as judge, jury and executioner in a very short period of time … to score blockchains themselves.”
Hoskinson suggested that Apollo, who is a former employee of Consensus, which developed Ethereum, has been biased against other platforms from the start, adding that the director had even mentioned during one of his first meetings that it was his belief the stable token should just be built on Ethereum first.
That was something Hoskinson immediately pushed back on.
“I mean, they passed 31 cryptocurrency laws, and none of them said, ‘Hey, bitcoin’s great, but Ethereum is bad or Ethereum is great,” he said. “They said these are the rules and as long as you follow them, you have clear rule of law and regulation, which is why so many cryptocurrency companies relocated to Wyoming, mine included. Because we believed everybody would be treated equally.”
The decision to exclude so many blockchains and ecosystems in what Hoskinson characterized as an arbitrary way is a “black eye” on the state’s fairness, he said.
“There was no real opportunity for public comment,” he said. “There was no opportunity for appeals or rebuttal. After picking a short list, Cardano was excluded, saying that we didn’t have certain capabilities — which we actually do — although we were never told that these capabilities would be necessary, so we had no opportunity to prepare a prototype.”
Senator Chris Rothfuss, who was instrumental in developing Wyoming’s digital asset laws, including the Wyoming Stable Token, told Cowboy State Daily he believes the process was fair.
“It was designed to be fair, open and public, with a clear set of criteria established by subject matter experts to evaluate candidate blockchains for issuing WYST,” he said.
That criteria list included a requirement for “freeze and seize.” The phrase seems to refer to the seizure of a questionable cryptocurrency asset, a capability that would likely be required by the Securities and Exchange Commission during an investigation, to forestall any money laundering.
That’s a capability that Cardano does not yet have, Cowboy State Daily was told, but could have been working on in anticipation of the need, if the state had been transparent about releasing its criteria to the public.
Rothfuss, however, also suggested that the selection process isn’t necessarily finished at this point.
“This process is dynamic,” he said. “And pre-qualified blockchains will evolve as their capabilities evolve. For example, I anticipate that Midnight, a layer 2 network for Cardano currently in a test state, will be prequalified once its capabilities are ready.”
Rothfuss added that feedback and corrections are also welcomed.
“The Cardano community is encouraged to provide updated information if any assumptions in the evaluation were inaccurate,” Rothfuss said. “Wyoming remains committed to a technology-neutral approach, ensuring WYST operates across multiple blockchains to support our broader goals of innovation and compliance.”
Cardano has long been a heavy-hitter in the cryptocurrency sphere, with a blockchain that is capable of processing a million transactions in a second.
The platform was created by Hoskinson in 2017 as his idea for the next logical evolution of Ethereum, and is billed by the Ethereum cofounder as the “third generation” for cryptocurrency platforms, with bitcoin the first, Ethereum second, and Cardano the third.
“My company, Input Output, is one of the companies that created Cardano, and it is worth, it trades $34 billion in dollars every single day,” Hoskinson said. “I also have hundreds of employees based in Gillette for other business ventures, like I own a large healthcare clinic up there. We have 10,000 patients with Hoskinson Health.”
Hoskinson’s company also has a digital assets laboratory, where it works with the University of Wyoming in developing this sector.
“It’s by far the largest blockchain project that has a — it’s the only blockchain project in the top 10 — that has a nexus in Wyoming,” Hoskinson said.
Cardano began allowing the creation of native tokens like NFTs or stable coins starting in 2021, but unlike Ethereum, Cardano doesn’t restrict such tokens to smart contracts. Instead, they run on the same platform as the platform’s cryptocurrency unit, ADA, making them what Cardano describes on its website as “first-class” citizens on the blockchain.
Cardano said it believes that makes the tokens more secure, and that it will reduce the fees associated with such transactions.
Cardano’s process also uses a different mechanism to validate blockchain transactions, one that’s less energy intense.
Hoskinson was among vocal supporters of the Wyoming Stable Token when it was unveiled a year and a half ago, and he even offered at one point to build the state’s stable token for a dollar.
“It’s not about making money,” he said. “I just care about making sure it’s done right. If Wyoming is going to do this, it has to be done in a way that benefits the state.”
Hoskinson said he’s attended many meetings over the past year and a half and reviewed hundreds of documents related to the stable token..
“What’s happened over time is that the process went from open to more and more secretive,” he said. “Where certain subcommittees were closed and people weren’t really sharing information with people. It went from, ‘Hey, this is going tot be an open RFP process and open RFQ process, and the merit-based qualifications will come in’ to ‘we’re going to go ahead and the state will just arbitrarily select according to our own criteria, with no oversight, winners and losers.’”
The exclusion of not just Cardano, but bitcoin and the thousands of other blockchains in this manner is a head-scratcher, Hoskinson said.
“Bitcoin is larger than all the other cryptocurrencies combined, and Trump wants to do a strategic reserve, and Senator (Cynthia) Lummis is a huge fan of Bitcoin,” Hoskinson said, adding that, “It’s extraordinary to me” that Bitcoin would be excluded.
Hoskinson said he still believes in Wyoming and that things will get “remedied” in time.
“I don’t know why they made these decisions,” he said. “They were done in a very opaque and not so transparent way, but we’re just gonna move forward. I believe in this state, I live in this state, I employ hundreds of people in the state and put hundreds of millions of dollars into the state. I’m going to continue doing that because I live here.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
CASPER, Wyo. — “My early morning walk to work,” writes photographer Kevin Tavarez.
What a gorgeous way to start the day! Thanks, Kevin.
Do you have a photo that captures the beauty of Wyoming? Submit it by clicking here and filling out the form, and we may share it!
Downtown Cheyenne is pictured Monday, Oct. 14. (Jared Gendron/Cap City News)
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Cheyenne has now approved its first on-street paid parking district.
Cheyenne councilmembers approved a resolution Monday designating a parking district in downtown Cheyenne. The region generally spans West 15th Street to West 24th Street and Pioneer Avenue to Warren Avenue. Several blocks along Thomes Avenue and O’Neil Avenue are also included.
Any rates attached to paid parking have yet to be decided. The Cheyenne Police Department’s Parking Division will establish placement of parking zones, as well as parking rates.
The city has been considering the possibility of a parking district since early 2024. City staff first held a public hearing in February. The city then OK’d a resolution in July to form a program for paid on-street parking districts.
The resolution can be viewed below.
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A federal judge on Monday sentenced a western Wyoming man to more than three years in prison for striking a police officer with a flagpole while participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Douglas Harrington, a 69-year-old Navy veteran, was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution, federal court records show.
U.S. Chief Judge James E. Boasberg convicted Harrington of assaulting an officer and civil disorder, along with five misdemeanors, following a July bench trial in Washington. On the afternoon of the Jan. 6 riot, Harrington swung a flagpole at multiple officers and rushed a police line.
Federal prosecutors had sought an eight-year prison sentence for Harrington, who lives in the Star Valley community of Bedford, arguing he planned for violence that day, joined the mob and attacked officers.
“Harrington’s criminal conduct on January 6 was the epitome of disrespect for the law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Mirabelli wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “Harrington continued to demonstrate his lack of respect for the law through his continuous posts and messages deriding prosecution of crimes related to January 6 and promoting further political violence.”
Attorneys for Harrington sought a prison sentence of 18 months, contending their client’s conduct that day wasn’t reflective of how he’s lived the rest of his life.
“Mr. Harrington regrets the actions he took on January 6, 2021, not because he fears the consequences for his actions, but because he recognizes now that these actions were foolish, dishonorable, and out of line with his sense of right and wrong,” Deputy Federal Public Defenders Jake Crammer and Lisa LaBarre wrote. “He is sorry, has repented of his mistakes, and promises the Court to never let himself be put in a similar position again.”
Federal prosecutors say Harrington traveled to the nation’s capitol after spending weeks denouncing the results of the 2020 presidential election, which then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed was stolen. In messages to others, Harrington expressed anger over the outcome of the election and described plans for violence.
“We’re planning to f*** up antfa and blm thus [sic] time we want blood these pussies are f***ing criminal,” he wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 text message, court documents state.
Harrington attended the Stop the Steal Rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, and then walked to the Capitol. He brought with him a painter’s respirator mask and carried a flagpole with U.S. and Trump flags attached. Prosecutors say he passed through a heavily barricaded area and knew police were trying to keep rioters from advancing. At his trial, Harrington acknowledged that he was aware police had used tear gas and rubber bullets at the Capitol grounds.
While police and rioters were engaged in a violent struggle at the Upper West Terrace, Harrington donned his painter’s respirator mask and goggles and, at 3:42 p.m., approached a line of officers and challenged them with hand gestures, according to prosecutors.
“Well, if they wanted to pick on someone, I’m more than capable to defend myself,” he testified at trial when asked about the message he had sought to communicate to the officers.
Harrington swung the flagpole in the direction of police officers on the line, and when Metropolitan Police Department Officer Samuel Mott intervened, he swung the pole at him and struck the man near his left hand and wrist and on his helmet, prosecutors say. Two other officers responded, one deploying pepper spray and a second firing a 40-mm non-lethal round at Harrington. He took one or two more swings toward police before retreating into the crowd.
About five minutes later, Harrington and other rioters used a large piece of opaque material to push into the police line. Prosecutors say he grabbed and pulled at an officer’s baton and apparently tried to grab an officer’s utility belt.
Authorities finally escorted Harrington off the Capitol grounds at 5:48 p.m. that day. He later testified that he was not attempting to get into the Capitol building itself. But prosecutors noted that he sent a text message that day saying he was “breaking down fencing to gain entry into the Capitol building.”
Citing text messages, prosecutors contend Harrington didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.
“We caused the riot because the government devils dont [sic] get it,” he wrote two days after the riot.
“We should have grabbed all of the traitors and waited for military tribunals,” he texted three days after that.
In arguing for a lengthy prison term, prosecutors insisted that Harrington lacked any remorse.
“He never took any responsibility for striking Officer Mott with the flagpole,” they wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “To the contrary, he blamed Officer Mott for defending his fellow officers from Harrington’s attacks with the flagpole … Similarly, when testifying about pushing into the police line with the large piece of opaque material, he attempted to blame others, saying he was ‘goaded’ into doing so by other rioters … In reality, Harrington was a ready and willing participant.”
Harrington’s attorneys acknowledged he “made some grave mistakes in the heat of the January 6 demonstration, mistakes that warrant punishment.” But his conduct that day was out of the ordinary for the Vietnam War veteran, who since retiring and moving to Wyoming, frequently performs plumbing and electrical work for elderly and low-income members of his church who don’t have the ability or resources to do the work themselves.
Defense attorneys also pointed out that Harrington was acquitted of several charges including using the flagpole to cause bodily injury to Mott. The officer did not seek medical attention for his left wrist until 20 months after the riot and didn’t undergo surgery until three years after the riot. Further, the officer may have been injured by another rioter that afternoon.
“Mr. Harrington spent over 60 years of his life evincing nothing but respect for the law and for law enforcement particularly, and in the nearly four years that have transpired since January 6, 2021, he has not engaged in any similar misconduct,” his lawyers wrote. “He has learned from his mistakes, and the Court should have little fear that he will ever commit a similar crime again.”
How much prison time Harrington actually serves remains to be seen. Trump, who was elected to a second term earlier this month, indicated in a July interview that he may pardon Jan. 6 rioters.
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