Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has called 2026 a “do-or-die” year for the Cardano ecosystem to boost its DeFi presence in the crypto space. Notably, he appeared on the Wolf of All Street show on Sunday, and the roadmap for Cardano in 2026 was one of the topics he discussed with host Scott Melker. He reiterated the sentiment that this year would be decisive for ADA, providing context for the belief. Cardano ranks as the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a valuation of over $14 billion.
However, on the DeFi side, the chain has not only failed to compete with its peers but has also fallen behind newer, less valuable networks by a wide margin. The founder noted that they did not arrive early enough in the smart contract scene, hampering user traction. This has impacted several metrics, such as monthly active users (MAU), total value locked (TVL), and transaction volume. Again, he highlighted that Cardano has not yet bridged to other top DeFi ecosystems in the crypto space or brought major stablecoins to the network.
Nonetheless, Hoskinson noted that ADA was slowly coming to the scene. Gradually, the Cardano team has implemented the necessary roadmap to solve this long-standing issue. Specifically, he noted that Bitcoin and XRP DeFi are on the way, bringing more users to the network, and the Midnight mainnet launch is on the horizon, connecting Cardano to other chains while adding a touch of privacy. Hoskinson stated that this brings a 60x improvement to the chain’s throughput.
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