Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says ADA represents a “far better store of value” than Bitcoin, arguing that Cardano combines a capped monetary system with an architecture capable of evolving as new technological threats emerge.
Speaking during his Nov. 7 surprise AMA, Hoskinson rejected suggestions that he had promised Cardano would overtake Bitcoin. He said he would like to see that happen but has never guaranteed such an outcome.
What he did defend strongly was Cardano’s underlying design.
Hoskinson described Cardano as a “far better store of value” with “far better technology,” pointing to what he called principled money, a Bitcoin-like capped monetary policy and Cardano’s extended UTXO architecture.
ADA currently trades around $0.175, giving Cardano a market capitalization of roughly $6.45 billion. Bitcoin remains vastly larger by market value.
Hoskinson Says Cardano Combines Scarcity With Upgradability
A major part of Hoskinson’s argument concerns monetary policy.
Cardano has a maximum supply of 45 billion ADA, a ceiling explicitly protected by the Cardano Constitution. The network currently has roughly 44.99 billion ADA in total supply, while a portion remains in reserves and continues entering circulation through staking rewards.
Hoskinson characterized this as a “deflationary monetary policy like Bitcoin.”
Strictly speaking, ADA’s circulating supply can still increase as reserves are distributed, so “deflationary” here reflects Hoskinson’s description of the capped issuance structure rather than an assertion that the circulating ADA supply is currently shrinking.
He also highlighted Cardano’s extended UTXO model, which builds on the transaction-output approach associated with Bitcoin while supporting programmable smart contracts.
Hoskinson believes Cardano has another advantage: the ability to evolve.
“You have UTXO like Bitcoin has, but you can change it and you can deal with threats like quantum computing and other things as they come up,” he said.
The statement reflects his view that Cardano’s governance and upgrade structure allows the protocol to adapt over time rather than remaining technologically fixed.
Hoskinson Says Cardano’s Core Technology Is “Basically Done”
Hoskinson then shifted from Cardano’s monetary design to what he believes should drive its next stage of growth.
“Cardano is built for things to be built on it,” he said, adding that “the technology is basically done.”
According to Hoskinson, his most useful contribution now is therefore to create applications on Cardano that can attract users.
“If those things are successful and they bring millions of people in, that’s millions of Cardano users,” he said.
That argument builds on his recent defense of projects such as RealFi, Pogun and Midnight.
Hoskinson said these projects should not be interpreted as distractions from Cardano.
“What I can do is build on Cardano and through building on Cardano bring people in,” he said, specifically naming RealFi, Pogun and Midnight.
Some will succeed and some will fail, he acknowledged, but successful projects ultimately benefit the underlying ecosystem by bringing users and activity onto Cardano.
Midnight Is Central to the Strategy
Midnight has become the clearest example of that philosophy.
Hoskinson recently argued that every NIGHT holder is already a Cardano user because NIGHT was distributed as a Cardano-native asset and requires Cardano infrastructure to hold it.
During the same AMA, he questioned why Midnight’s success should be considered harmful to Cardano when the purpose of a blockchain platform is to support successful projects.
Hoskinson said a major project becoming worth billions of dollars would demonstrate Cardano’s capability as an application platform while attracting new infrastructure demand and transactions.
RealFi represents another part of that strategy. Hoskinson has previously said RealFi could become a significant source of TVL and transaction activity for Cardano.
Leios Is Coming, But Mainnet Rollout Still Requires Steps
Hoskinson also pointed to Ouroboros Leios as evidence that Cardano’s underlying roadmap is approaching maturity.
“We have Leios imminently,” he said, noting that the technology was already operating on the Musashi test network and would be “forked in soon.”
Leios is designed to substantially increase Cardano’s throughput by introducing additional transaction-processing capacity alongside the existing Praos chain. The public Musashi testnet has been operating since June, with an earlier testing phase reaching approximately six times current Cardano mainnet throughput under synthetic load.
However, Leios is not yet active on Cardano mainnet.
Intersect’s Nov. 6 update said Node 11.3, which is intended to include the complete Dijkstra feature set and Linear Leios, was still at least two to three weeks from a release candidate at that point. A Nov. 11 Cardano Foundation update said Node 11.3 is expected in December, with further testnet tuning still required.
The Dijkstra hard fork also remains subject to Cardano’s on-chain governance process.
The Crypto Basic previously reported that Hoskinson expects Leios to make Cardano competitive with networks such as the XRP Ledger on performance.
Hoskinson Wants Cardano Projects Put “Front and Center”
Hoskinson also called for greater promotion of projects already building on Cardano.
He specifically referenced Strike and other ecosystem teams doing what he described as good work.
“They need to be front and center, and you need to market with them and help them market,” he said, concluding: “Nothing shows success like success.”
That statement summarizes his broader argument.
Hoskinson believes Cardano’s foundational work—including governance, extended UTXO, multiple node implementations and upcoming Leios scaling—is mature enough that the network now needs successful applications capable of attracting large numbers of users.
His claim that ADA is a better store of value than Bitcoin remains his assessment rather than an established market fact. But his latest comments make his strategy clear: Cardano’s next test is no longer simply whether the technology works, but whether RealFi, Midnight, Pogun and independent Cardano projects can convert that technology into sustained adoption.