Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has argued that $ADA is a “far better store of value” than Bitcoin, contending that the network combines a capped monetary system with an architecture capable of evolving as new technological threats emerge. He made the remarks during a surprise ask-me-anything (AMA) session held on Nov. 7.

During the same session, Hoskinson rejected suggestions that he had promised Cardano would overtake Bitcoin, saying he would like to see that happen but has never guaranteed such an outcome. What he did defend emphatically was Cardano’s underlying design.

Hoskinson’s Case for Cardano as a Store of Value

Hoskinson described Cardano as offering “far better technology” alongside its monetary characteristics, pointing to what he called principled money: a Bitcoin-like capped monetary policy paired with Cardano’s extended UTXO architecture.

Store-of-value arguments in cryptocurrency have traditionally been anchored to Bitcoin, the oldest and largest network by market value, placing Hoskinson’s comments within one of the sector’s most familiar debates.

$ADA currently trades around $0.175, giving Cardano a market capitalization of roughly $6.45 billion. Bitcoin remains vastly larger by market value.

Scarcity Paired With Upgradability

Monetary policy sits at the center of Hoskinson’s argument. Cardano has a maximum supply of 45 billion $ADA, a ceiling explicitly protected by the Cardano Constitution. The network currently has roughly 44.99 billion $ADA in total supply, with a portion still held in reserves and continuing to enter circulation through staking rewards under the network’s proof-of-stake model.

Hoskinson characterized this structure as a “deflationary monetary policy like Bitcoin.” Strictly speaking, $ADA’s circulating supply can still increase as reserves are distributed; the term reflects his description of the capped issuance structure rather than an assertion that circulating supply is currently shrinking.

Bitcoin’s supply is hard-capped at 21 million coins, and altering its rules requires broad consensus among the network’s developers, miners and users.

He also highlighted Cardano’s extended UTXO model, which builds on the transaction-output approach associated with Bitcoin while supporting programmable smart contracts. In his view, this gives Cardano a further advantage: the ability to evolve.

“You have UTXO like Bitcoin has, but you can change it and you can deal with threats like quantum computing and other things as they come up,” he said.

The remark reflects his position that Cardano’s governance and upgrade structure allows the protocol to adapt over time rather than remaining technologically fixed. Quantum resilience has itself become a growing topic across the crypto industry as researchers assess how future quantum computers could affect the cryptographic signatures securing existing blockchains.

‘The Technology Is Basically Done’

Hoskinson then shifted from Cardano’s monetary design to what he believes should drive the network’s next stage of growth.

“Cardano is built for things to be built on it,” he said, adding that “the technology is basically done.”

According to Hoskinson, his most useful contribution at this stage is to create applications on Cardano that can attract users. “If those things are successful and they bring millions of people in, that’s millions of Cardano users,” he said.

The argument builds on his recent defense of projects such as RealFi, Pogun and Midnight, which he said should not be interpreted as distractions from Cardano. “What I can do is build on Cardano and through building on Cardano bring people in,” he said, naming RealFi, Pogun and Midnight specifically. He acknowledged that some of these efforts will succeed while others fail, but argued that successful projects ultimately benefit the underlying ecosystem by bringing users and activity onto Cardano.

Midnight as the Centerpiece

Midnight has become the clearest example of that philosophy. Hoskinson has recently argued that every $NIGHT holder is already a Cardano user, because $NIGHT was distributed as a Cardano-native asset and requires Cardano infrastructure to hold.

During the AMA, he questioned why Midnight’s success should be considered harmful to Cardano when the purpose of a blockchain platform is to support successful projects. In his view, a major project reaching a valuation in the billions of dollars would demonstrate Cardano’s capability as an application platform while attracting new infrastructure demand and transactions.

RealFi represents another strand of the same strategy. Hoskinson has previously said the project could become a significant source of TVL (total value locked) and transaction activity for Cardano.

Leios Is Imminent, but Mainnet Steps Remain

Hoskinson also pointed to Ouroboros Leios as evidence that Cardano’s underlying roadmap is approaching maturity. “We have Leios imminently,” he said, noting that the technology is already operating on the Musashi test network and would be “forked in soon.”

Leios is designed to substantially increase Cardano’s throughput by introducing additional transaction-processing capacity alongside the existing Praos chain, the consensus protocol currently securing Cardano mainnet. The public Musashi testnet has been operating since June, and an earlier testing phase reached approximately six times current Cardano mainnet throughput under synthetic load.

Leios is not yet active on Cardano mainnet, however. Intersect’s Nov. 6 update said Node 11.3, which is intended to include the complete Dijkstra feature set and Linear Leios, was still at least two to three weeks from a release candidate at that point. A Nov. 11 Cardano Foundation update said Node 11.3 is expected in December, with further testnet tuning still required. The Dijkstra hard fork also remains subject to Cardano’s on-chain governance process, under which protocol upgrades proceed only after a successful on-chain vote.

As previously reported by The Crypto Basic, Hoskinson expects Leios to make Cardano competitive on performance with networks such as the XRP Ledger.

Putting Cardano Projects “Front and Center”

Hoskinson also called for greater promotion of the teams already building on Cardano, specifically referencing Strike and other ecosystem projects doing what he described as good work.

“They need to be front and center, and you need to market with them and help them market,” he said, concluding: “Nothing shows success like success.”

The Broader Argument

The remarks capture Hoskinson’s current positioning for the network. In his view, Cardano’s foundational work — including governance, extended UTXO, multiple node implementations and upcoming Leios scaling — is mature enough that the network now needs successful applications capable of attracting large numbers of users.

His claim that $ADA is a better store of value than Bitcoin remains his assessment rather than an established market fact. Still, his latest comments make his strategy clear: Cardano’s next test is no longer simply whether the technology works, but whether RealFi, Midnight, Pogun and independent Cardano projects can convert that technology into sustained adoption.