Cardano Needs Strong Leadership to Drive Bitcoin DeFi, Says Charles Hoskinson

Cardano is making technical strides toward integrating with Bitcoin DeFi, but concerns about leadership are growing. According to founder Charles Hoskinson, the absence of an executive voice is affecting the network’s ability to promote a clear and compelling narrative.

Hoskinson Calls for Executive Direction

Charles Hoskinson has expressed concerns over Cardano’s current leadership structure. In a recent statement on X, he said the network lacks a central executive voice to guide its direction. This absence, he noted, prevents Cardano from effectively pushing new narratives to the broader market.

Hoskinson emphasized that Cardano has made major advancements with Leios, Hydra, and the Midnight Glacier Drop. However, despite these innovations, he believes Bitcoin DeFi represents the network’s best opportunity to shape a compelling story.

“Bitcoin DeFi is indeed the largest opportunity, but the single biggest issue is that we are missing a competent Foundation and executive authority to push these narratives,” said Hoskinson.

Cardano does indeed need a narrative. And currently there's only 1 narrative that can actually catch on: Bitcoin L2.

And there's only 1 man who has the power to push a new narrative: Charles.

So the best anyone in the ecosystem can do is to support this narrative imo.

— Patrick Tobler (@Padierfind) June 29, 2025

Cardano’s Push into Bitcoin DeFi

Cardano is shifting toward the full incorporation of DeFi products on the Bitcoin network. The biggest decentralized exchange on Cardano, Minswap, is to implement support for Bitcoin and to enable the tapping of a potential pool of $2 trillion liquidity. In the meantime, USDM and Lace Wallet are becoming increasingly popular.

Minswap is the largest DEX on Cardano – the first and largest UTXO smart contract chain that will plug into Bitcoin. 🟠🤝🔵

That means Minswap will have a first-mover advantage as a proper BTC DEX. It's hard to underestimate the opportunity. @MinswapDEX thread anyone? pic.twitter.com/OZipNkCQ1N

— Andrew | BitcoinOS (@AThrouvalas) June 11, 2025

These efforts are part of Cardano’s broader aim to become a smart contract layer for Bitcoin. However, the absence of executive coordination may hinder effective execution. According to Hoskinson, this lack of leadership is slowing adoption and affecting sentiment.

Community Reactions and Leadership Struggles

Hoskinson said that attempts to lead narrative development himself have been met with backlash. He noted that critics have accused him of centralizing control and even theft. “It’s been brutal and expensive this year,” he said, referring to public scrutiny.

He explained that despite leading Input Output Global (IOG), which acts as Cardano’s core technical coordinator, he faces resistance when trying to steer public opinion. According to Hoskinson, several detractors do not recognize the network developments and successes.

The community (podcasters, analysts, etc.) has called Cardano stagnant. This has given rise to the issues of better narrative management and the necessity to decentralize governance or not.

Rare Evo and the Future of Cardano Governance

In the future, Rare Evo, a crypto conference devoted to such a topic as governance, is an upcoming event where the stakeholders of Cardano are attaching their hopes. Hoskinson expressed that such an event would help in elucidating the leadership structure of the network.

It is also proposed that there would be a delegated executive power, and the Cardano constitution could be changed to do so. It would enable easier presentation of objectives and efficient decision-making procedures. Further, the community will introduce a sovereign wealth fund at Rare Evo. The fund would facilitate the projects of Bitcoin DeFi and back the development of infrastructure financially.

According to Hoskinson, the incident provides a chance for a reset. Using the right governance, he suspects that Cardano would stand a better chance to compete with the expanding Bitcoin DeFi industry and win over both institutional and developer attention.