Cardano Founder Says Ardana and Orbis Collapse Was a Leadership Issue, Not Funding

Hoskinson comments on Ardana and Orbis incident.

Members of the Cardano community received sad reports this week after two projects building on the blockchain, Ardana and Orbis, chose to halt development due to a lack of funding. Many have commented on the issue in the past few hours, with some Twitter users blaming Cardano for the incident.

In a video posted yesterday, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson addressed some of the misconceptions already circulating on the internet following decisions by Ardana and Orbis to end development.

Rugs and Failed Projects https://t.co/8tZbmU4tsk

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 25, 2022

It Was A Leadership Issue

According to Hoskinson, Ardana, and Orbis,’ the decision to cease operations was not caused by a lack of funding as claimed. Cardano founder said he invested in Ardana and Orbis, as well as other projects built on the network, including Sundaeswap, through the cFund, Cardano’s ecosystem venture fund. He asserted that the problem stemmed from the projects’ leadership. 

“This was not a funding issue. This was not a platform issue [it] looks like it was a leadership issue. Things happen, people sometimes don’t execute, people make mistakes, and usually, there’s something left behind for people to salvage from these situations,” he said. 

Hoskinson claims that these projects never disclosed to the cFund that they were having financial issues. He said that, like everyone else, Cardano’s team discovered on Twitter that Ardana and Orbis had financial constraints.

“Having talked to the cFund, the first time we were informed that these projects were having trouble was through Twitter at the same time as you guys, which is utterly distasteful and it shouldn’t have happened,” Hoskinson was quoted as saying.

Hoskinson: Crypto media Will Create Negative Stories About Cardano

The prominent cryptocurrency entrepreneur said it was distasteful for the teams behind these projects to blame Cardano. He added that the crypto media will capitalize on the issue to create a story that Cardano is “dead or failing or succumbing to the same forces that killed FTX.” 

Per Hoskinson, not all new projects invested in via venture capital will survive. He said 1,200 projects could be built on a network, and more than 900 would have failed in the next two to three years.

“Good ideas can be great ideas and still fail. Great technology could be great and still fail. You require the right people, processes, procedures, execution, strategy, and market conditions for something to be successful. Sometimes people get incredibly lucky and they’re in the right place at the right time and sometimes people get incredibly unlucky,” Hoskinson noted.

Recall that Cardano-based Orbis, a layer-2 solution utilizing zkSNARK roll-up tech, announced it had halted operations on November 24, citing constrained funding and uncertain conditions.

Hey all of

Unfortunately due to constrained funding and uncertain conditions, Orbis Labs is unable to continue building and the project as come to a halt. This is unfortunate given the amazoing research and work that has been produced.

— Orbis (@orbisproject) November 24, 2022

A few minutes later, Ardana, which pitched itself as the “first all-in-one stablecoin ecosystem built on Cardano” announced that it had decided to cease operations due to funding and timeline concerns.

Hello Ardana community,

Unfortunately due to recent developments with regards to funding and project timeline uncertainty, the Ardana project has had to come to a halt. Our code will remain open source for builders to continue our work going forward as they wish.

— Ardana – DeFi Hub of Cardano (@ArdanaProject) November 24, 2022