Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has proposed allocating $100 million in ADA tokens from the project’s reserves to purchase Bitcoin and stablecoins to boost the DeFi segment within the network.
“We could take $100 million in ADA from the treasury, convert it into a mix of stablecoins used in Cardano, namely USDM and USDA, and exchange part for Bitcoin for the initial BTCFi,” he stated.
According to Hoskinson, this move would address the blockchain ecosystem’s shortcoming of limited stablecoin adoption, which reduces competitiveness in the DeFi space.
He believes solving this issue would generate “non-inflationary income” and stimulate the decentralized finance economy.
Data from DeFi Llama shows the total stablecoin capitalization in the network is $31.6 million, compared to $124.4 billion for the leading Ethereum. Cardano ranks 46th among blockchains in this metric.
Overall, the network has approximately $278 million in locked DeFi assets, placing it 24th. In comparison, Ethereum and Solana, which hold the top two spots, have TVL values of $61.7 billion and $8.3 billion, respectively.
Concerns Over ADA Price Pressure Exaggerated?
In the past 24 hours, ADA’s price has dropped by about 6%, and the overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has declined by 5%. Cardano’s token is trading near $0.6, approximately 60% below its all-time high recorded in September 2021. Around 36.1 billion coins are in circulation.
Some users criticized Hoskinson’s proposal to sell a significant amount of ADA due to potential pressure on the asset’s price.
“We could convert 140 million ADA over a week or so without moving the market using OTC and TWAP orders. This is a false narrative,” he responded to critics.
In his view, mere belief in “Cardano DeFi as a bullish trend” would create enough buying demand to offset the large-scale liquidation.
Again, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The markets are deep. Billions of dollars of ada trade hands every week across the world. The belief that Cardano DeFi is bullish alone would create enough buy demand to offset a liquidation at this scale. If 100 million could…
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) June 12, 2025
“If $100 million could move the market, Cardano would have extreme volatility,” Hoskinson added.
Potential Contradictions
In March, Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard noted in an interview with CoinDesk that he does not consider TVL a significant indicator of blockchain adoption.
The head of the organization behind the ecosystem’s development added that his goal is to maintain a level of 50% non-financial activity in the network. He categorized such operations as “valueless transactions” within Cardano’s “real use,” such as digital identification, metadata tracking of document records, and similar activities.
Cardano Foundation manages the project alongside Hoskinson’s IOG and Emurgo. The latter are commercial enterprises, leading to certain contradictions between the entities, Gregaard acknowledged.
“The purpose of creating a non-profit organization was to optimize decision-making based on a 10-year perspective. This differs from optimizing governance ‘for tomorrow’,” he clarified.
However, CoinDesk noted that users pointed to more serious disagreements between the parties, describing them as a feud. Hoskinson partially agreed with this.
Back in April, the entrepreneur announced an audit of the Cardano Foundation’s treasury following accusations of misappropriating $600 million in ADA.