Outspoken Ethereum co-founder and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has responded to his exclusion from the guest list for a digital assets summit at the White House in March with a challenge of his own.
While major crypto industry representatives including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, and Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse have gathered for talks with President Donald Trump and key advisors, Hoskinson was notable for not attending, despite recent talks regarding ADA’s inclusion in a proposed U.S. crypto strategic reserve.
Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week, Hoskinson, a 37-year-old tech expert, downplayed the situation. “A lot of people want to approach David Sacks and Bo Hines and build relationships there,” he said. “It’s nice from a visual standpoint, but it doesn’t translate into sustainable, lasting policy.”
When asked if he would like to meet face-to-face with President Trump, Hoskinson was blunt: “I don’t need to make a deal with Trump.”
Despite being among the top 10 cryptocurrencies with a market cap approaching $22 billion, Cardano has been the focus of criticism. Its pace of development, particularly its late implementation of smart contracts and its use of the complex Haskell programming language, have led to skepticism among developers.
Unlike Ethereum’s thriving ecosystem of over 1,000 DeFi apps that manage over $46 billion in value, Cardano currently hosts just 39 apps with a total value of under $300 million. Even longtime partners like World Mobile have started to branch out to other networks.
Hoskinson’s rivalry with Ethereum runs deep. After leaving the project in 2014 due to disagreements about its structure, he has repeatedly criticized its development approach, particularly its reliance on layer 2 scaling solutions.
“They didn’t realize that Layer 2s are like mosquitoes,” he said. “They suck up your liquidity, your user base, your token value, and they don’t give much return.”
Despite Trump’s recent actions, such as the creation of the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and the appointment of pro-crypto SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, Hoskinson continues to focus on long-term stability in the regulatory environment:
“There’s going to be someone after Trump, whether it’s J.D. Vance, whether it’s a Democrat, whether it’s someone else. We need a consistent, stable set of rules.”
Hoskinson is keeping a close eye on two major pieces of legislation: the Genius Act, which would regulate stablecoins, and a broader market structure bill that could clarify crypto oversight and support the tokenization of real-world assets. “By 2030, there will be approximately $10 trillion in real-world assets coming into play,” the ADA founder predicted.
Hoskinson is also serious about the risks of Trump’s unorthodox leadership style, including his aggressive trade policies. The crypto market has lost about a quarter of its value since Trump took office in January.
“Trump is running the U.S. government like a startup,” Hoskinson said. “When you run it like a startup, it works 60 percent of the time. The rest of it fails.”
But this instability, he said, underscores the need for decentralized alternatives.
*This is not investment advice.
