Charles Hoskinson rang in 2026 from his Wyoming ranch with a message that sounded, at first blush, like an exit. It wasn’t. The Cardano founder said he is “not leaving the cryptocurrency space,” but he is walking away from day-to-day life on X and retooling how he shows up publicly, arguing that his visibility has become a liability for Cardano and Midnight adoption. Hoskinson opened the New Year’s livestream titled “Happy New Year and Farewell” with a post-mortem on 2025, framing it as a year in which parts of the industry chased success faster than it built systems capable of delivering on crypto’s broader promises.
In his telling, the space “lost our way” by letting incentives and spectacle override first principles. He was also explicit about what the “farewell” refers to and what it does not. The clearest operational change is his decision to step back from X entirely. “I’ve outgrown X,” he said.
“So it’s my farewell to that platform and I’ll turn it over to curators and AI. It’ll go into silent mode for probably a few weeks to a few months as we build up that infrastructure because I have more important things to do, but I’m going to uninstall the app and never think of it again.” Hoskinson said he plans to focus instead on “long form writing,” AMAs, livestreams, and experimenting with new media formats, floating Twitch as one possible outlet. The goal, as he framed it, is to preserve community connection while reducing the surface area for what he described as increasingly hostile, toxic cycles during downturns, and to push Midnight toward realizing larger-scale impact and adoption.
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