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Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings' move onto the Solana blockchain has sparked a major scandal and a public clash within the Cardano ecosystem. The Japanese corporation announced the creation of an alliance to launch stablecoins and tokenize assets, triggering a wave of criticism among ADA holders.
Historically, investors from Japan provided Cardano with around 90% of its initial funding, so the community viewed the rival deal as a crushing defeat and a failure of the project's official organizations.
On X, users began demanding that Charles Hoskinson take responsibility for losing the region. The platform founder responded in the harshest possible terms. Hoskinson flatly refused to accept personal blame, accused the community of "learned helplessness," and directly stated that the era of centralized project management from a single office was over.
Hoskinson's position can be reduced to a strict formula — neither he personally nor IOG has a monopoly on commercial negotiations. For major contracts, Cardano has a shared Treasury governed through on-chain voting.
Hoskinson puts the burden of growth back on token holders
Hoskinson stressed that if the community wants deals on the scale of SBI, it must fund commercial initiatives itself instead of begging for solutions on social media. In response to reminders about Cardano's historical ties with Asia, he demanded that his opponents produce legal mandates.
"Who is the entity? Who has the funding and official mandate? Show me the vote or contract. You cannot randomly assign this," Hoskinson snapped.
The conflict has exposed a systemic challenge for Cardano. While Solana operates through aggressive, centralized foundations that directly secure integrations, Cardano is attempting to live by the rules of pure democracy, where every grant must pass through lengthy rounds of voting.
For developers facing declining liquidity, the founder's position looks like an attempt to distance himself from the problem. For Hoskinson himself, it is a manifesto: decentralization means that every token holder is now responsible for the network's commercial success, not a single prominent leader.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
