Hoskinson Goes Nuclear On Cardano Foundation: Here's Why

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Charles Hoskinson used his latest AMA to unleash his most forceful critique yet of the Cardano Foundation (CF), defending the decision to exclude the CF from claiming Midnight’s NIGHT tokens while outlining aggressive multi-chain partnerships, airdrop mechanics he says could be among the largest ever, and a near-term push around Token2049 and an Asia tour.

At the center was the Midnight redemption controversy. Asked “to address the decision to limit the CF from claiming NIGHT tokens,” Hoskinson framed the move as a necessary risk control rooted in the airdrop’s terms. “We built it. It’s my money. We can do whatever the hell we want to do,” he said, adding that the distribution included a disclaimer about “undue burden and harm to the network.”

Hoskinson Torches Cardano Foundation

He asserted ownership of the CF’s ADA is “not clear,” claiming “the Swiss government stole the ADA,” and warned that letting the CF redeem would introduce an adversarial governance bloc: “They’d come in and instantly be adversarial […] and assert that they have some sort of governance control. Let somebody else have that NIGHT who’s going to do something more with it.”

He escalated further later in the stream: “At what point does the community tell the CF to f*** off […] the free [stuff] they already squandered?” and, when pressed on why to blacklist the Foundation’s addresses, replied, “Why invite a bad actor […] into an ecosystem?”

He added to his rant: “I’m out there alone and it’s expensive, guys. Some of these deals with the big guys, they’ve become eight figure deals. […] It’s frustrating because all of our competitors have foundations that in some cases have endowments that are in the billions to tens of billions of dollars and they’re hungry and aggressive, and they’re doing stuff and they’re investing in stuff and they’re really pushing things forward.”

Related Reading: Cardano Founder Proposes Automated Global Compliance System, Here’s WhyHoskinson also insisted that the Midnight rollout materially benefits Cardano rather than siphoning attention from it, pointing to custody and exchange integrations set up to list both Midnight and Cardano-native assets. “We just announced today the Copper partnership[…] any exchange that uses Copper as a custodian […] can now support that asset. And […] they didn’t just agree to support Midnight. They agreed to support Cardano and Cardano native tokens,” he said, grouping Copper with relationships involving Bitcoin.com, Blockchain.com and Brave.

Hoskinson also said IOHK is working with Chainlink on a first-ever UTXO deployment: “We sat down with Sergey [Nazarov] […] They’re skeptical about the engineering cost […] [but] ‘I think we can figure it out.’”

The CF critique broadened into a sweeping governance and resourcing indictment. Hoskinson alleged the Foundation “is just not deploying capital in meaningful ways,” noting its absence from recent conferences: “When I was at Salt […] who wasn’t there? The CF. When we were at Rare Evo […] there was no CF booth.”

The Midnight Foundation Is Different

By contrast, he cast the Midnight Foundation as aggressively commercial—110 deals in the pipeline and “hungry” account management across ecosystems—and pointed to Intersect, Cardano’s members-based body, as the organ that now embodies his original foundation vision: “You already got a members-based organization […] It took two years to build it […] Now just add like $600 million […] and give them four extra years.”

Related Reading: Cardano Closes 264 Million ADA Budget Cycle, IOG Takes LeadHe drew a direct line from CF governance to reputational damage: “Members of the organization are low-key soft accusing us of stealing money […] Were there any apologies? Was there any attempt for reconciliation?”

The animus with the CF bled into an evidentiary promise. Hoskinson said the audit report is in the final stages—“we’re so close to the release”—intended to “close out a 10-year history lesson from 2015 to 2025,” including “the original contracts with IO […] how much funds were raised […] the sale […] ADA vouching,” and audits tied to the Cardano Foundation.

Hoskinson framed it as “complete exoneration on our part,” and “very damning” for the CF’s “recusal […] of their responsibilities,” arguing that the Foundation’s decision to distance itself from Cardano’s origin story “created a lot of problems.” The purpose, he said, is “sunlight”: “You push it all out there […] and I think those conclusions will be very positive and favorable to Input Output.”

At press time, ADA traded at $0.8795.

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