Hoskinson on What He Would Change About Cardano’s Development

Charles Hoskinson would have pursued Cardano node diversity earlier, committed more capital to ecosystem builders and taken a different approach to foundation governance. His response to a viewer’s question also set out priorities for his future work: faster research implementation, stronger consumer products and greater community involvement in Midnight’s development.

Earlier Node Diversity and More Cardano Funding

Hoskinson identified structural choices around the Haskell node as decisions he would revisit, alongside the timing of alternative implementations of Cardano’s node software.

“We would have started the node diversity much, much earlier,” he said.

He also named the design of Leios, Cardano’s throughput upgrade, among the advances he wished he could bring back with him.

On funding, he said he would probably have sold some ADA near the market peak and put the proceeds into a venture capital fund larger than cFund. The aim would have been to provide more backing for builders and entrepreneurs he trusted. He discussed that hypothetical use of ADA retrospectively, without announcing a new sale.

His institutional criticism focused on the Cardano Foundation’s board and accountability. In his assessment, handling an earlier dispute differently could have produced a foundation controlled by the community.

Leios as a Development Model for Midnight

Hoskinson pointed to Leios as a process he wants to repeat: research paper, specification, simulation and implementation. He said the project had moved close to production in under a year.

He wants to apply that approach to Midnight, a blockchain designed to support applications and smart contracts with privacy capabilities. His priorities include a private proof of stake protocol, which he said he is working on, and core infrastructure for decentralized finance.

“Get those into Midnight, get them in fast, get the community more involved too,” he said.

He also described institutional cooperation as an area where lessons had already been applied. Hoskinson said he holds weekly calls with Midnight Foundation president Fahmi Syed and attributed their working relationship to the independent organization’s structure, mission and long term focus on the ecosystem.

Consumer Products and Community Input

Hoskinson wants a stronger focus on reaching end users and building around their needs.

“We need to have a much stronger B2C strategy and we need to lean into where consumers are at today,” he said.

He described Midnight’s roadmap as oriented toward commercialization and practical adoption. He also cited fragmented communication as a lesson from Cardano, arguing that the lack of shared community channels makes it harder to inform and organize participants.

For future governance, he proposed allowing Midnight users to vote on which areas of development should receive priority. He wants to bring a model associated with Midnight City into the network’s roadmap once it has matured and demonstrated that it works reliably.