Broadcasting “from tough and rugged Wyoming” late on September 14, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson delivered a forceful rebuttal to what he known as years of dismissive “ghost chain” narratives, arguing that the business has “moved the goalposts” away from decentralization and towards VC-favored velocity and token economics.
“It sucks to go to cryptocurrency Reddit and it doesn’t matter what you say or do, you’re criticized and demeaned and attacked,” he mentioned, after studying a group publish lamenting the “overwhelming unfavourable sentiment outdoors of our group.” Hoskinson’s message: Cardano will persist with its unique temporary—resilience, censorship resistance, and self-governance—and the payoff is close to. “Keep the religion and don’t surrender hope. The cavalry is coming. We are shifting precisely as we have to,” he mentioned.
Hoskinson Blasts Cardano Critics And ‘VC Chains’
The livestream’s central theme was a conflict of first ideas. Hoskinson traced early crypto’s mission to “disintermediation and decentralization,” saying the sector has since rewarded throughput and speculative manias—NFTs, GameFi, memecoins, and now RWAs—over credible neutrality. “The goalpost moved from disintermediation and decentralization to, effectively, let’s construct high-performance methods and we don’t significantly care if these methods are resilient or decentralized,” he argued.
In his telling, Cardano’s refusal to compromise on these design objectives explains each the community’s slower, research-driven cadence and its perceived under-appreciation in Web3 circles: “We’ve beat that drum and we’ve constructed protocol after protocol doing issues the correct approach. Not the attractive approach, not the VC-friendly approach.”
Hoskinson framed the mission’s previous decade as an train in constructing sturdy primitives: the prolonged UTXO mannequin for deterministic good contracts; “liquid non-custodial staking”; the Ouroboros household of protocols; the Hard Fork Combinator for “telescoping” upgrades; end-to-end on-chain governance and treasury; and newer ideas resembling isomorphic state channels, a partner-chains paradigm, and “Bitcoin DeFi” to align with what he known as a principles-first ecosystem. “Every yr, Cardano continues to get extra decentralized, extra resilient,” he mentioned. “We’re capable of take the very best of all of the concepts within the area, however by no means as soon as have we compromised on who we’re.”
On scalability, Hoskinson mentioned Cardano is “on the daybreak” of its subsequent section. He said that “Leios is now in a SIP,” describing it as “the final stage earlier than implementation” and “the muse of a scalability agenda that’s limitless,” language he linked to a co-evolution with Hydra and advances in zero-knowledge cryptography. Taken collectively, he mentioned, these efforts goal at “infinite scale simply in time to soak up the wants of the financial, political and social methods overseas and at dwelling.” He pointed to Hydra’s maturation—from a “toy” to demonstrations together with a “merchandising machine” and checks he described as “one million transactions a second”—as a key pillar of the community’s L2 posture.
The founder set out a go-to-market plan that intentionally appears past crypto natives. “Less than 5% of the world is within the cryptocurrency area,” he mentioned. “So why will we significantly care a couple of minority of a minority when there’s a giant broad world on the market?”
He urged “physicalizing Cardano,” citing Hydra-backed point-of-sale and ATM integrations, and burdened “rational privateness for all” by means of Midnight. He additionally solid Cardano as “the very best place to launch a brand new blockchain,” linking that declare to the partner-chains initiative and what he known as the “greatest AVS expertise within the area.” Bitcoin stays the essential ally on this technique, he mentioned: “We need to companion with ecosystems which might be ideas first like Bitcoin… And we’re doing this with Bitcoin DeFi.”
Cavalry Coming?
Geographically, Hoskinson highlighted Argentina and Africa. He mentioned Input Output maintains the “largest cryptocurrency workplace” in Buenos Aires and hosts biweekly occasions, including that Cardano “continues to develop all through Latin America.” In Africa, he mentioned the long-trailed identification push is “virtually able to roll out,” with 2026 focused to “activate the flexibility to deliver financial identification to the thousands and thousands finally billions who don’t have it.” Throughout, he contrasted these efforts with what he characterised as short-lived hype cycles: “To be actually a visionary, it’s a must to settle for that it’s a must to go alone typically into the wilderness… And we’ve carried out that for 10 years.”
Governance milestones shaped one other through-line. Hoskinson declared the mission’s “Voltaire” period “mission achieved,” citing a community-elected constitutional committee, “a whole bunch of DReps,” a ratified on-chain structure, and an annual finances. “We’re already speaking in regards to the subsequent structure and an unbelievable suite of governance instruments,” he mentioned, arguing that this collective equipment lets the ecosystem “converse with one voice,” ratify upgrades, and “converge to a finances” with out compromising liveness or security. “We are the one chain within the historical past of the cryptocurrency business to do that,” he asserted.
The deal with included uncommon self-critique. Hoskinson mentioned he wished Cardano had “moved quicker in sure areas,” made “barely completely different selections in regards to the ordering of the roadmap,” and staffed partnerships extra aggressively. He nonetheless credited the privacy-focused Midnight initiative with “greater than 100 partnerships,” positioning it as a industrial bridge that “will deliver a whole bunch extra, if not hundreds.”
He additionally revisited longstanding allegations from rival communities, saying he’s “nonetheless inundated” with claims he “stole $600 million,” and added {that a} “128-page” forensic audit “gave full exoneration,” a outcome he mentioned obtained little consideration from crypto media. “The asymmetries of knowledge sting lengthy, onerous, and sadly take years or many years to undo,” he mentioned.
Hoskinson closed by returning to group morale, urging Cardano’s governance contributors to “overlook the previous and… look to the longer term,” redirecting vitality towards entrepreneurs who can “deliver within the numerous thousands and thousands to tens of thousands and thousands to a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of customers.” The core guess, he mentioned, is unchanged: that decentralization, credible governance, and research-led engineering will finally outlast each hype cycle.
“The subsequent 24 to 36 months, Cardano might be ready the place it’s the quickest, most safe, and albeit talking, greatest platform… to construct something at scale for anybody,” Hoskinson concluded, including: “Cardano’s greatest days are forward of it. I’ll at all times imagine that. And that’s as a result of Cardano has the very best individuals.”
At press time, ADA traded at $0.89.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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