Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson has argued that treasury funding decisions have cost the network opportunities, saying some rejected proposals could have strengthened ADA and the wider ecosystem.
Speaking during a September 18 livestream, Hoskinson pointed to Pogan as a clear example. He said the project could have become a gateway for trillions of Bitcoin liquidity into Cardano’s decentralized finance ecosystem, increasing total value locked, stablecoin activity and transaction volumes.
Notably, in April, Input Output (IOG) had sought funding for Pogan but later divided its broader funding package into nine separate proposals after the community asked for individual requests, derailing the project.
“The sad part is it didn’t commercially impact Pogan at all. It just meant that Pogan could be multi-chain instead of a Cardano-centric thing, and you guys don’t get any of the upside on the transaction fees. They go different places.” He stated.
According to Hoskinson, the rejected funding meant Pogan could operate across multiple networks rather than focusing more heavily on Cardano. He said the resulting fees could have supported ADA purchases and contributed to the treasury.
 
“It was going to go into buying ADA and go into the treasury, but your DREPs, you voted against that,” he said.
He further cited a proposed sovereign wealth fund as another missed opportunity. He said the proposal involved $100 million in stablecoins and contrasted the potential value of buying ADA when it traded around $0.83 with the situation after the token fell below $0.20.
“Could you imagine having a hundred million of stablecoin locked in at an 83-cent ADA as opposed to a 20-cent ADA?” he asked.
He argued that the funding decisions also demonstrate the commercial consequences of Cardano’s decentralized governance. Projects can choose to operate across competing networks, meaning rejected funding can potentially result in economic activity being directed elsewhere.
“We’re no longer operating under a deploy on Cardano first and forever mindset,” Hoskinson said.
He added that Input Output Global (IOG), the firm behind Cardano, will increasingly decide where products should operate based on commercial and technical considerations. Cardano will remain an option for applications where its architecture provides an advantage, including Bitcoin DeFi and UTXO-based applications.
Hoskinson also rejected the idea that he still controls Cardano because he founded the blockchain. He said he has no voting power and does not control its code, trademark, or treasury decisions.
“This is the consequence of governance, and people have to make decisions, and obviously I’m not in charge. I don’t make these decisions.”
He said his focus is now shifting toward building products rather than attempting to personally steer Cardano’s governance.
Back in June, Hoskinson had proposed moving Cardano’s governance discussions from X to a moderated Discord community and creating a coordinated DRep voting bloc to address funding and participation problems.
That said, his comments come as ADA remains about 92.6% below its $3.10 all-time high recorded in September 2021.
At press time, the crypto asset was trading at $0.2445, up 8.35% in the past 24 hours.
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