Following the controversial accusations, the outcomes of the third-party forensic evaluation of the Cardano (ADA) voucher redemption program have been made public. Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, says he’s now “ready for the apologies to return rolling in.”
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Cardano Accusations Have ‘No Basis’
On Wednesday, the Cardano neighborhood celebrated after the third-party forensic evaluation of the ADA voucher redemption program was revealed. The investigative report, carried out by regulation agency McDermott Will & Schulte and the audit agency BDO, decided that the allegations towards Input Output Global (IOG) don’t have any basis.
“After evaluation of tens of 1000’s of paperwork, a forensic on-chain and conventional forensic evaluation, and eighteen formal interviews of present staff, former staff, Voucher Holders, service suppliers, neighborhood members, and different third events, the Investigation decided that every of the allegations associated to the Topics of Investigation would not have any foundation,” the report reads.
Public accusations included 5 fundamental allegations, together with that insiders stole or misused ADA that ought to have been allotted to voucher holders and that there have been improper sale techniques associated to the voucher program.
The claims additionally accused Cardano blockchain upgrades of being designed to make voucher redemption tough, and deleted voucher holders’ “personal keys” or belongings. Lastly, the allegation that Cardano insiders had no authorized proper to ship unredeemed ADA to CDH and resolve how one can spend it.
The controversy emerged in May, when Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artist Masato Alexander alleged that Charles Hoskinson had “unilaterally used his genesis keys to REWRITE the Cardano ledger” throughout the Allegra onerous fork in 2021 to take management of 318-350 million ADA, about 0.2 % of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) allocation that remained unclaimed years after launch.
Hoskinson denied Alexander’s claims, arguing that 99.8% of the vouchers bought have been redeemed by their authentic patrons, whereas the remaining 0.2% have been “returned to the TGE and donated to Intersect by way of the identical course of that funded the Cardano Foundation.”
The Review Findings
Based on the Investigation, McDermott Will & Schulte and BDO discovered that the sources of the general public allegations towards IOG and Charles Hoskinson didn’t originate from unredeemed voucher holders, they usually “didn’t determine proof indicating that Input Output or Sawyers turned away any potential Voucher Holder who possessed a sound Voucher.”
Additionally, they concluded that cheap guardrails have been carried out to forestall misleading advertising and gross sales techniques, noting that this system was not designed to use the aged.
The audit additionally revealed that 97.3% of all of the vouchers, or 98.8% of the ADA allotted, have been redeemed on-chain throughout the Byron period, and “substantial efforts have been undertaken to trigger Voucher Holders to redeem on-chain” on the time.
As of August 15, 2025, 99.2% of Vouchers consisting of 99.7% of all ada bought pursuant to the Voucher Program have been redeemed by way of the on-chain redemptions and Post-Sweep Redemption Project.
Meanwhile, the evaluation highlighted that the voucher certificates contained redemption codes as an alternative of “personal keys,” refuting the accusation that these keys have been later deleted. It additionally concluded that Cardano insiders didn’t misappropriate the staking rewards from the unredeemed ADA.
Time To Move On, Says Hoskinson
Hoskinson went on X Space to share the audit end result, studying the announcement of IOG’s Chief Legal Officer & Chief Policy Officer, Joel Telpner, and the chief abstract of the 128-page doc.
Cardano’s founder stated that it’s been a “deeply irritating” course of, noting that “It’s one factor to assault my intelligence, my bodily look, my enterprise acumen, my integrity. It’s one other factor to accuse me of against the law.”
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“This is over. And for the individuals who stirred this pot: do the correct factor, and simply apologize. Have some frequent fucking decency as a human being. Apologize. Let’s simply all transfer on, say you have been incorrect. Have sufficient integrity to try this,” he requested.
Hoskinson shared his hope that most individuals will understand that the accusations have been taken “too far,” concluding that “Hopefully, we are able to now simply put this nightmare behind us.”
Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
