Charles Hoskinson Says Cardano TVL Could Have Surpass $19 Billion If Staked ADA Were Counted

Cardano founder believes that the TVL on the network could have surged above $19 billion if people were allowed to count their staked tokens. 

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson noted that the amount of total value locked (TVL) on the network could have been worth billions of dollars if staked ADA were counted.

Hoskinson, the current CEO of Input Output Global (IOG), the firm responsible for the research and development of the Cardano blockchain, made this known in a tweet today.

According to Hoskinson, Cardano’s TVL could have been worth more than $19 billion dollars if the project’s developers made it mandatory for users to lock their ADA in order to stake them across various protocols.

“Fun Fact, if you counted the staked Ada, Cardano’s TVL would be over 19 billion dollars. Why don’t we count it? Because you don’t need to lock your Ada to stake it,” the IOG CEO tweeted earlier today.

Fun Fact, if you counted the staked Ada, cardano's TVL would be over 19 billion dollars. Why don't we count it? Because you don't need to lock your Ada to stake it.

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 6, 2022

Many Cardano enthusiasts have expressed mixed reactions toward the development, with many of these investors calling on decentralized finance (DeFi) data tracking platforms, including DeFiLlama, to confirm Hoskinson’s assertion.

@0xngmi @DefiLlama Any thoughts on this?https://t.co/xoGf0gkkie

— St₳ke with Pride ? Ardana & Hosky pool (@StakeWithPride) May 6, 2022

Cardano Still Far From $1B in TVL

Meanwhile, the total value locked in Cardano is yet to reach a billion dollars despite the positive energy that surrounded the launch of the smart contract functionality that was unveiled in September 2021 during the Alonzo upgrade.

It is worth noting that although Cardano enabled smart contract functionality in September 2021, decentralized applications (dApps), including exchanges did not launch on the network until after a few months.

Despite the launch of dApps, the total value locked (TVL) across various protocols on the first day of 2022 was close to $0 and considered insignificant to keep track of.

Interestingly, the launch of SundaeSwap decentralized exchange became a game changer, as Cardano TVL surged from $0 to more than $200 million in less than four months.

Cardano saw its TVL surged to as high as $326 million on March 24, 2022. However, the value had since dropped significantly following the dip of the ADA coin, which has traded below $1 for most of the year.

At the time of writing this line, Cardano’s TVL is worth $202 million and it is down 9.31% in the last 24 hours, data on DeFiLlama shows.

Hoskinson Confident of an Imminent Surge

While Cardano’s TVL is yet to reach a billion, Hoskinson is confident that the value will surge next month after the Hydra Hard Fork is launched, which is believed to be a major proponent of luring more developers to build on the network.