Cardano Founder Says “Audit Time” as Big Accounting Firms Involved in $600M ADA Audit Process

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has embraced the concept of a broader audit on Input Output Global to settle escalating claims of $600M ADA theft.

The Crypto Basic recently reported a heated community debate involving Hoskinson and a section of acclaimed ADA enthusiasts over an alleged 318 million ADA ($600 million at the time) diversion. The accusation drew a response from the Cardano founder and other prominent members of both the ecosystem and IOG.

With Hoskinson teasing an audit to clear these misappropriation claims, the proposal has gained momentum. It is “audit time,” the Cardano founder tweeted on May 20, sharing a post with further details on the process.

Audit time https://t.co/hgeGqz40e8 pic.twitter.com/GieKpW1UO8

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 20, 2025

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Big Accounting Firms Involved in the Audit Process

Meanwhile, Hoskinson’s tweet, which contained a quote from Bane in the popular “The Dark Knight Rises” film, quoted a post from a notable IOG employee. Specifically, he shares a tweet from Joel Telpner, the chief legal officer of IOG, providing a major update on the audit process.

Telpner mentioned that they have engaged prominent law and accounting firms to scrutinize the IOG’s books in an attempt to clear the air. Notably, law firm McDermott Will & Emery and accounting and auditing firm BDO International, which are household names in their fields, will take on the task.

Furthermore, the duo will engage a crypto analytics firm to document findings and draft a comprehensive report properly. This would enhance the transparency of the process and avert future claims of irregularity.

Nonetheless, the CLO stresses that although the audit process will resume immediately, it is unclear when the involved firms will submit a report on their findings. Notably, the statement came in response to the ADA community’s growing demands for a timeline and the audit’s scope.

Prominent Cardano Ecosystem Leaders React

Meanwhile, the days-long argument has drawn reactions from key Cardano ecosystem players, who have backed Hoskinson. One notable response came from EMURGO, Cardano’s commercial arm.

In a long thread on May 19, EMURGO’s official X account shed some light on the ADA redemption scandal ravaging the Cardano community. First, it confirmed that there were unclaimed ADA tokens from the 2017 ICO conducted by IOG.

7/ TLDR:

▪️The vast majority of vouchers have been successfully claimed.
▪️To locate the unclaimed voucher holders, IOG led a thorough seven-year process.
▪️EMURGO is supportive and confident of the measures taken and planned over the years.
▪️The Shelley hard fork would have…

— EMURGO (@emurgo_io) May 19, 2025

However, the firm made substantial efforts to reach out to participants with unredeemed ADA vouchers through a thorough seven-year process. Some included a door-to-door search for users with unclaimed ADA in Japan, where most initial voucher holders resided, to facilitate the redemption process. Meanwhile, the effort proved partially effective, as some ICO participants were still not found.

Remarkably, the July 2020 Shelley hard fork possessed a crucial impediment to the ADA redemption process. For the uninitiated, the upgrade saw Cardano move from a federated model to a more decentralized network system, a process that would render the unclaimed ADA tokens unspendable.

To that effect, IOG moved the unredeemed ADAs to continue the claiming process without affecting Cardano’s upgrade roadmap. EMURGO stressed that this move, which is the backbone of the escalating claims, was in the best interest of the Cardano ecosystem.

Hoskinson to Dim X Presence After Audit

For context, Hoskinson noted that these attacks were quite personal, causing him to reevaluate things, including his social media presence. He concluded that he would hand over his X account to a social media team after the audit and change the format of his AMAs and X Space podcasts.

Meanwhile, he would still attend events and relate with the community as he used to. The founder noted this process was necessary for his healing journey.

Notably, this is not the first time Hoskinson has threatened such measures after a heated community feud. He stated he would go “off the grid” after the WALDE meme coin fallout with the community.