Key facts
- Hoskinson told a YouTube viewer that Cardano's roadmap is complete and everything he said would be built has been built.
- He said he never promised Cardano would overtake Bitcoin, only that he would love it to happen.
- Hoskinson said the network is decentralized and self-governing and that he has no power over the ecosystem.
- The Plomin hard fork in January 2025 gave ADA holders voting power, which the report calls the final roadmap step.
- ADA was at $0.17, down 86% from its 2024 high of $1.21, per Decrypt data.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of the Cardano blockchain, said the network's roadmap is complete and that everything he said would be built has been built, during a YouTube livestream on Saturday, November 7, 2026, according to a Decrypt report published November 13, 2026.
The remarks came in an exchange with a viewer identified as shevilkid1738, who said Hoskinson had promised Cardano would overtake 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, adding: "I don't promise price appreciation, or people overturning things. I say it's absolutely possible."
The viewer returned with a quote in which Hoskinson said he thinks Cardano is probably going to become the biggest cryptocurrency in the world. Hoskinson pointed to the word think and said he has taken the project as far as he can, describing the network as decentralized and no longer reliant on him as a founder. Asked when an obligation to investors ends, he said: "The roadmap is complete. Everything I said is going to be built has been built."
Cardano's roadmap ran through five eras. Byron launched the network in September 2017, Shelley added staking in July 2020, and Goguen brought smart contracts via the Alonzo hard fork in September 2021. Basho, the scaling era, arrived via the Vasil upgrade in September 2022, and the Chang hard fork began Voltaire, the governance era, in September 2024. The Plomin hard fork in January 2025 gave ADA holders voting power over the blockchain's future, which the report describes as the final roadmap step.
Hoskinson said the dispute with holders is financial. "You want me to pump your bags. That's what you're really saying. The job's not done till it's pumped," he said, arguing that each new buyer at a higher price creates another disappointed holder.