- Charles Hoskinson declared Cardano’s roadmap complete during a YouTube AMA, saying everything he promised has been built and that IOG’s original 2015 contract has expired, leaving the network to govern itself.
- ADA holders pushed back hard, with the token trading near $0.17, roughly 94% below its 2021 high.
- The argument raises questions about whether Cardano can continue to improve and regain value without its founder controlling how money is spent.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said he has finished all the work planned for the network and kept every promise he made. However, some ADA investors disagreed, with the token still trading more than 94% below its record high in 2021.
Hoskinson made the comments during a YouTube question-and-answer AMA session, where he argued with investors unhappy with Cardano’s progress.
UPDATE: Charles Hoskinson says #Cardano $ADA’s “roadmap is complete. Everything I said is gonna be built—has been built. It reached 4x the value of Honda. Millions of people have used it, millions of people continue to use it, and it is self-determining and self-governing.”
— Angry Crypto Show (@angrycryptoshow) November 12, 2026
Heated argument over Bitcoin claim
During the YouTube session, a viewer named shevilkid1738 said Hoskinson had once promised Cardano would become bigger than Bitcoin. Hoskinson said he never made that promise.
“I never promised that. I said I’d love for it to happen, and I believe that Cardano is a better store of value than Bitcoin is for a variety of reasons,” he said.
“I don’t promise price appreciation, or people overturning things. I say it’s absolutely possible.”
The viewer also questioned when his duty to investors would end, to which Hoskinson responded that the roadmap was “complete”. He added that everything he said was going to be built was already in existence.
Hoskinson said Cardano had millions of users and was once worth four times as much as Honda. He also suggested that investors were mostly upset because they wanted him to make ADA’s price go up.
ADA sits near $0.17
ADA’s falling price helps explain why investors are upset. The token was worth about $0.17 when Hoskinson held the AMA, far below its record high of $3.10 in September 2021. This means it had lost about 94.5% of its value. ADA was also down 86% from its highest price in 2024.
Cardano has continued to improve as a blockchain despite ADA’s falling price. Its RealFi mainnet launched on October 1, 2026, and the network has also received several other upgrades.
These changes have, however, not helped ADA’s price recovery to what investors used to know.
IOG contract has expired
Hoskinson said his original work on Cardano is finished because the contract signed in 2015 with Input Output Global (IOG), the company he runs as CEO, has ended.
However, Hoskinson said development on Cardano would continue under new funding plans. This includes building more apps and working on Leios, a project designed to help the network handle more transactions faster. The work will no longer be funded through the original contract.
Critics remain unhappy about the low use of Cardano’s DeFi services and worry that Hoskinson spends too much time on other projects, such as Midnight.
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Opeyemi Olanrewaju
Opeyemi specializes in creating and refining high-quality content focused on cryptocurrency, global financial markets and the economy. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an MBBS degree. He has worked as Editor-in-Chief for his College’s editorial publication and previously at CFA. For over six years, he has helped safeguard uniqueness as news editor at Cryptopolitan.
