Charles Hoskinson Backs AlphaGrowth PRIME as Cardano Confronts Its DeFi Execution Gap

Charles Hoskinson has publicly backed AlphaGrowth PRIME, an active Cardano treasury proposal focused on expanding DeFi liquidity and commercial activity.

Speaking on A Dose of Alpha with hosts connected to AlphaGrowth, Hoskinson said Cardano has a strong base in staking, governance and technical development, but still lacks the DeFi depth needed to change broader market perception. The discussion placed PRIME inside a larger debate over how Cardano’s Voltaire-era governance can fund growth without weakening decentralized decision-making.

Hoskinson Frames Cardano DeFi as an Execution Gap

Hoskinson rejected the idea that Cardano is inactive, pointing to staking, delegation, stake pool operators and governance participation as evidence of a live network. He said the contrast is that Cardano’s DeFi layer remains comparatively weak, describing one side of the ecosystem as vibrant while another still feeds the “ghost chain” narrative.

The distinction matters for how the market evaluates Cardano. Governance strength, technical design and decentralization remain core parts of the network’s identity, but DeFi activity is usually judged through liquidity, TVL, stablecoin depth, application usage and capital flows. Hoskinson described Cardano’s DeFi position as “anemic” compared with the strength of the network’s staking and governance base.

He also argued that Cardano does not have a core technology problem. He cited progress around Mithril, Plutus, node diversity, improved developer experience and more language options for builders. He also referenced integrations such as LayerZero, Pyth and Circle as part of an effort to close practical infrastructure gaps that have limited Cardano’s competitiveness in DeFi.

AlphaGrowth PRIME Tests Treasury Funded DeFi Growth

AlphaGrowth PRIME seeks 120 million ADA from the Cardano treasury for a 12-month program focused on DeFi growth, liquidity and ecosystem development. The proposal has been presented around qualified TVL targets, DeFi partnerships, liquidity programs and measurable milestones.

Hoskinson said Cardano needs outside experience from teams that have worked across multiple ecosystems. In his view, Cardano has often had an insular mindset, while DeFi growth requires broader market knowledge, liquidity relationships and project-level support. He said operators like AlphaGrowth could help advise applications on a DApp-by-DApp basis and support the ecosystem in building a more systematic growth plan.

The interview also returned to Cardano’s missing executive function. Hoskinson said the network has built legislative and judicial layers through governance and constitutional structures, but still needs stronger execution around strategy, KPIs, marketing, growth and adoption. PRIME sits directly inside that discussion because it is not a protocol upgrade, but an operating program intended to deliver commercial outcomes through treasury funding.

Hoskinson’s comments also included sharp criticism of EMURGO’s historical commercial performance. He said Cardano has had a “10-year hole” in the commercial infrastructure that was supposed to support ecosystem growth. He pointed to Intersect and Pragma as examples of newer structures that can help Cardano repair earlier gaps through self-correction rather than dependence on perfect founding entities.

Midnight and Agents Expand the Cardano Roadmap

The interview also connected Cardano’s DeFi challenge with Input Output’s broader commercial direction. Hoskinson described IO as increasingly operating like a venture studio around Cardano, with work across RealFi, Midnight, Midnight City and other initiatives aimed at users, liquidity and new financial infrastructure.

Midnight was presented as a major part of that longer-term roadmap. Hoskinson described it through four connected areas: abstraction, smart compliance, privacy and agents. Midnight is a Cardano partner chain focused on selective disclosure and privacy-preserving applications, allowing developers to build products that can protect user data while still supporting regulated use cases. Its $NIGHT token is part of that network’s infrastructure rather than a replacement for Cardano’s DeFi layer.

Hoskinson said agentic finance will require more than trading bots and liquidity pools. He described a future where automated agents need wallets, identity, disclosure systems, trusted execution, zero-knowledge tools and compliance logic. He said Midnight has integrated the Open Wallet Standard, is preparing Midnight Passport for identity and disclosure, and has joined the x402 Foundation as part of that direction.

The RWA discussion followed a similar pattern. Hoskinson said he is less interested in simply tokenizing existing public stocks and more interested in novel regulated assets, structured finance, synthetic finance and products that create new functionality on-chain. That places DeFi, privacy, identity and agent infrastructure into the same commercial frame.

For Cardano, PRIME addresses the near-term liquidity and execution gap, while Midnight points toward a longer-term infrastructure path around privacy, identity and automated finance. The treasury vote will test whether Cardano governance can fund commercial execution with clear goals, while the wider roadmap shows how the ecosystem is trying to connect DeFi growth with products that can support broader use.