In a recent interview with CoinDesk, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson drew a parallel between Cardano's development trajectory and Anthropic's rise in the artificial intelligence industry. He noted that Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI assistant, currently leads the AI sector despite entering the market after established giants such as Google and OpenAI.

According to Hoskinson, Anthropic succeeded not by prioritizing speed but by adopting a disciplined development philosophy from the outset. He believes Cardano is now undergoing a similar shift in perception, as an increasing number of developers and investors place greater value on security and governance over "speed to market."

"Google initially had the big lead and then OpenAI had the big lead and then somehow this Anthropic thing came out and they were able to leapfrog everybody. […] They hadn't fundamentally changed, they just had the right mindset," Hoskinson said.

He added that the same principle could eventually benefit Cardano: "People are starting to wake up, especially in the age of AI hacking, where everything is getting broken, where speed to market is not the most desirable way."

.@IOHK_Charles compares Cardano's strategy to Anthropic's rise.

Google had the lead. Then OpenAI. Then Anthropic leapfrogged both, not by moving faster, but by building differently.

Hoskinson says the same lesson could apply to crypto in the latest episode of Markets Outlook… pic.twitter.com/h36GiShZYV

— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) July 23, 2026

Security Incidents Strengthen Cardano's Case

Hoskinson cited the Kelp DAO exploit and its knock-on effects on Aave as concrete examples of the dangers inherent in prioritizing rapid innovation over resilience. Cross-chain bridges have been among the most targeted vectors in DeFi, with incidents like the Wormhole and Ronin Network exploits resulting in losses exceeding $600 million each in prior years.

In April, Kelp DAO suffered a major exploit in which $292 million was drained after attackers forged cross-chain messages and withdrew unbacked rsETH through a misconfigured LayerZero bridge. While Aave's own smart contracts were not directly compromised, the attacker deposited the fraudulent rsETH as collateral to borrow legitimate assets. This left the lending protocol with significant exposure to bad debt and triggered billions of dollars in TVL outflows before the team implemented recovery measures.

For Hoskinson, the episode illustrated how vulnerabilities in a single protocol can cascade through the broader DeFi ecosystem, causing massive outflows and reputational harm:

"The recent AAVE thing and Kelp thing shows you how quickly you can lose your TVL (total value locked) and how uqickly you can lose your customer base. So, it works until it doesnt, and when it doesn't, it's catastrophic for the ecosystem."

He argued that lasting stability requires more than technically sound code: "People want stability and it only comes from having a clear governance system, a clear software development system, and really goo dideas on how to develop a roadmap in a sustainable way."

Cardano's development has been organized around a series of named eras — most recently the Voltaire era, which introduced on-chain governance through community voting and a treasury system designed to fund ecosystem development without relying on venture capital.

ADA's Longstanding Underperformance

Hoskinson's remarks also come amid sustained criticism from segments of the crypto community that Cardano has prioritized academic research — widely regarded as one of the protocol's key differentiators — at the expense of ecosystem growth. The project's use of the Haskell programming language and formal verification methods, while valued for correctness guarantees, has been criticized for creating a steeper barrier to entry for developers compared to Ethereum's Solidity ecosystem.

Cardano remains one of the largest protocols by market capitalization. At the time of writing, its market cap stands at $6.2 billion, ranking it as the 20th largest project in the industry — a significant decline from its former standing and well below where proponents had hoped it would be. ADA has been one of the weakest performers over the past year, declining 80% over the trailing 365 days. By comparison, Ethereum — the smart contract platform Hoskinson frequently benchmarks Cardano against, including in this interview — is down 48%, while Bitcoin, the industry benchmark, is down 44%.

Hoskinson acknowledged that the project's decision-making has not been without fault: "It took us a long time to get here. A lot of mistakes were made, and I own the lion's share of them as the leader."

Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the network is now better positioned than in previous market cycles: "Ultimately, I'm very happy with where wi sit, and I think we will grow very strongly over the next 12 to 24 months."

Whether that outlook materializes remains to be seen. His broader argument, however, reflects an ongoing industry-wide debate over whether the next phase of crypto adoption will be driven by protocols that prioritize rapid execution and market presence or those that emphasize security, governance, and long-term sustainability — or whether these objectives are, in fact, mutually compatible.