“What The Hell Else Can I Do?” Hoskinson Snaps At Critics As Cardano Delivers Its Biggest Year Yet, But ADA Still Lags

Cardano is having a year of big ambitions, but ADA holders are still waiting for the payoff. As criticism over adoption, liquidity, and the token’s stubbornly weak price performance continues, Input Output Global founder Charles Hoskinson has had enough — firing back at critics with a blunt question: “What the hell else can I do?”

Hoskinson’s frustration comes as Cardano pushes forward with projects such as Midnight, RealFi, and new ecosystem integrations, creating a striking gap between the network’s expanding activity and ADA’s market performance. 

Hoskinson Hits Back as Cardano’s Progress Collides With ADA’s Price Problem 

The clash began when a Cardano community member argued that Midnight’s launch as a separate network could ultimately come at the expense of ADA holders.

Hoskinson pushed back sharply, pointing out that NIGHT was issued through Cardano and questioning why a project originating from the Cardano ecosystem should automatically be seen as a threat to ADA or its holders.

Another community member turned up the heat, likening Hoskinson to a “used car salesman” while taking aim at what he characterized as Cardano’s weak liquidity, limited stablecoin activity, and sluggish DEX volume.

The community member also accused Hoskinson of shifting the blame onto ADA holders instead of developers when the ecosystem falls short of expectations, adding another layer to the growing debate over whether Cardano’s development progress is translating into real value for ADA holders.

Hoskinson responded by pointing to a long list of Cardano projects that have moved from development into real-world deployment this year. RealFi went live on the Cardano mainnet on Oct. 1 after months of public testing. Midnight also launched its network in March, while its NIGHT token had already debuted as a Cardano Native Asset in December 2025.

Meanwhile, Midnight.city is already running in open beta, adding an AI-focused application to the broader Midnight ecosystem.

Hoskinson also highlighted Pogun, a Bitcoin-focused DeFi initiative built around credit, yield, and bridging. The project’s request for 12.29 million ADA from the treasury failed to secure sufficient support in September, but Hoskinson has continued to maintain that development is moving forward.

Then there is the Pentad infrastructure push, with USDCx and Pyth already live, LayerZero being introduced in stages, and Fireblocks announcing plans to support Cardano Native Tokens fully.

Together, Hoskinson’s examples were intended to underscore a broader point: Cardano’s development pipeline is moving, even as ADA’s price performance continues to frustrate holders.

Cardano Faces Its Biggest Test Yet

This is where the debate gets more interesting — the on-chain numbers tell a more nuanced story than the criticism suggests.

According to DeFiLlama data, Cardano currently has roughly $70.78 million locked across its DeFi ecosystem, alongside about $67.2 million in stablecoin liquidity. That makes claims that the network has no stablecoin presence or DEX activity not entirely true.

DEXs have handled around $4.36 million in volume over the past 24 hours and $42 million over seven days, with weekly activity jumping 139%. Meanwhile, the network recorded approximately 15,985 active addresses and 25,631 transactions over the same 24-hour period.

The figures show that Cardano is far from inactive. But they also establish a hard benchmark for Hoskinson’s ambitious roadmap: the real test now is whether the projects he is touting can turn that development momentum into significantly deeper liquidity, greater usage, and stronger demand for ADA.

ADA is up about 10.8% on the day, trading near $0.273, at a $10.2 billion market capitalization. Notably, Cardano remains 91.1% below its $3.09 all-time high, highlighting just how much ground the token still has to recover.