Cardano is back in the spotlight as its ADA token slips below the $0.57 mark, raising eyebrows about the blockchain’s network activity and investor sentiment. Recent reports have indicated that co-founder Charles Hoskinson pointed the finger at the Cardano community for the stagnation of the platform’s decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.
In a new twist, Hoskinson has publicly clarified these statements, labeling them a misrepresentation of his views. He took to social media platform X to express his dissatisfaction with crypto news outlets for allegedly distorting his actual message. He firmly stated that he never blamed Cardano users for the DeFi challenges but rather aimed to highlight an ecosystem participation imbalance.
Hoskinson’s Clarification: I Never Blamed Anyone
In a video posted on X, Hoskinson expressed his frustration with what he deemed “fundamentally dishonest” reporting. He characterized the headlines that suggested he was placing blame on Cardano users as completely inaccurate.
The initial discussion, he explained, focused on a structural issue concerning the disparity between those who stake ADA and those actively participating in DeFi. With over 1.3 million users engaged in staking, Hoskinson noted that only a fraction of these users are involved with the platform’s DeFi offerings, thus affecting the total value locked (TVL), which remains relatively low compared to other comparable platforms.
He indicated that if engagement levels were similar across both activities, Cardano’s DeFi TVL could potentially range between $5 billion and $10 billion. He stressed that this observation is not meant to criticize the community but to provide an analytical perspective on user behavior and the growth patterns within the ecosystem. “There’s not a single person in the Cardano ecosystem who I am blaming for our DeFi situation,” he asserted.
A Closer Look At Cardano’s DeFi Sector
According to Hoskinson, the root of the problem does not lie in the lack of community engagement, but rather in the uneven participation between governance and DeFi activities. He emphasized that the large number of users and the robust staking participation reflect the network’s overall health and size, countering claims that suggest Cardano boasts only 10,000 to 50,000 active users.
The core challenge, he explained, is to understand why the majority of those who stake their ADA do not contribute to DeFi liquidity. Factors like slippage, transaction fees, user experience, yield measurements, and education may influence this participation gap.
Despite the recent uproar over misunderstandings surrounding his comments, Cardano’s sluggish DeFi growth remains a pressing concern. On-chain data indicates that ADA’s daily active addresses have sharply declined from over 32,000 in mid-October to approximately 24,000 at the start of November.
In light of this, data from DeFiLlama places Cardano’s TVL at the 26th position among blockchain networks, with a mere $243.2 million locked across 60 protocols. As of the latest figures, ADA is trading at $0.5417, reflecting a 6.2% decrease in the past 24 hours—an unfavorable trend that parallels a downtrend in the overall crypto market, which has seen a 4% decline.
