Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) said he is not leaving the project after comments about the network’s roadmap sparked speculation about his future. Hoskinson went live on Friday to address the discussion, saying Input Output is moving "from building Cardano to building on Cardano."
Roadmap Comments Fuel Speculation About an Exit
Speculation about an exit followed a YouTube AMA held on Saturday, Nov. 7. Hoskinson said the Cardano "roadmap is complete" and that everything he said would be built has been completed. He made the remarks while arguing with dissatisfied investors, with $ADA about 94% below its 2021 high, according to Decrypt data.
During Friday’s stream, Hoskinson said the roadmap is not being abandoned. He said it is continuing under dozens of firms that @IOGroup spent more than two years preparing, and that Leios, the upcoming scaling upgrade, is the last piece his company is responsible for. Leios is designed to increase the number of transactions Cardano can process. TokenPost reports that its public testnet began on June 23 and that a mainnet rollout is targeted for before the end of 2026. It is not live on mainnet.
Midnight Takes Centre Stage, but Adoption Remains a Question
Hoskinson is now focused on @MidnightNtwrk, which he expects to bring new users and volume to Cardano. He made the same argument during the Nov. 7 AMA. "What I can do is build on Cardano and through building on Cardano bring people in," he said then, naming RealFi, Pogun and Midnight, and adding that these projects should not be viewed as distractions from Cardano.
The criticism is not new. During Friday’s stream, Hoskinson said critics assess Cardano by its DeFi volume, total value locked and transaction counts, and that some do not accept Midnight as a Cardano project. He responded that all of the NIGHT supply is on Cardano.
On weak adoption, Hoskinson said responsibility for that work, and its funding, was assigned to the Cardano Foundation and Emurgo from the start. He urged $ADA holders to use their votes in Cardano’s on-chain governance.
The shift in role is not new. In a June interview with The Defiant, Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard said Hoskinson had gone from being founder and CTO of the whole project to one contributor among many, while remaining a "large thought leader."
