Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson highlights an missed potential in Bitcoin and XRP DeFi throughout a Token2049 interview.
On the convention in Singapore, Hoskinson spoke with Crypto Banter host Ran Neuner about Cardano’s future, challenges in DeFi, and the untapped alternative in XRP DeFi.
He acknowledged that Cardano has fallen behind rivals like Solana within the DeFi race, noting that Cardano’s whole worth locked (TVL) stays below $1 billion and that stablecoin adoption has been weak. Nevertheless, he emphasised that the market doesn’t value tasks based mostly solely on DeFi metrics.
“The market costs based mostly on philosophy and group,” he stated. “Cardano has 1.3 million staked wallets and on-chain governance that’s the biggest and most decentralized within the house.”
Regardless of setbacks, Hoskinson believes new alternatives, significantly in Bitcoin and XRP DeFi, might deliver Cardano again into the DeFi highlight.
Cardano Founder Identifies XRP $100 Billion DeFi Vacuum
Hoskinson described XRP as a sleeping big within the DeFi house. Particularly, he identified that the asset has over $100 billion in valuation however little to no native yield-generating infrastructure.
“There’s virtually $100 billion value of XRP floating round that’s yield-free. There’s no DeFi ecosystem for it,” Hoskinson stated.
He recommended that pairing XRP with real-world belongings (RWAs) and yield-generating merchandise might appeal to a good portion of that capital into the DeFi ecosystem.
The Cardano founder believes that with correct infrastructure, DeFi on XRP might develop into a multibillion-dollar ecosystem. Notably, platforms like Flare have begun offering yield alternatives for XRP holders.
Bitcoin DeFi and the UTXO Benefit
Hoskinson additionally sees huge potential in Bitcoin DeFi, one other space he says is vastly undervalued regardless of Bitcoin’s $2.4 trillion market cap. In his phrases:
“We even have a enormous native benefit for Bitcoin DeFi as a result of we’re UTXO and Bitcoin is UTXO. You’ll be able to write Cardano sensible contracts that compile and run on Bitcoin.”
He argued that this interoperability might give Cardano an edge in unlocking dormant worth throughout each the Bitcoin and XRP networks.
Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson on the chance in Bitcoin & XRP DeFi 📈
“Bitcoin DeFi I feel is the most important play. Cardano’s UTxO lets sensible contracts compile and run on Bitcoin.”
“For XRP DeFi, there’s additionally enormous untapped alternative.”@IOHK_Charles on @crypto_banter pic.twitter.com/2jZkys8mjv
— Cardanians (CRDN) (@Cardanians_io) October 7, 2025
Midnight, Scaling, and What’s Subsequent for Cardano
Moreover, Hoskinson shared updates on Midnight, Cardano’s information protection-focused sidechain. He famous that Midnight has already attracted over 100 partnerships and integrations, together with Courageous, Blockchain.com, and Bitcoin.com.
He additionally highlighted Hydra, a layer-2 scaling answer able to processing as much as a million transactions per second. In the meantime, he emphasised the necessity for quicker productization.
With Cardano’s on-chain treasury governance now lively and $1.5 billion out there for group use, Hoskinson stated the challenge is coming into a new period of decentralized improvement.
“The group simply accredited the primary finances. We nonetheless have over 200 engineers working in and across the Cardano ecosystem,” he stated.
Primarily, whereas Cardano missed the final DeFi wave, Hoskinson is now specializing in the untapped potential in Bitcoin and XRP DeFi. These two networks have important capital however little yield infrastructure.
DisClamier: This content material is informational and shouldn’t be thought of monetary recommendation. The views expressed on this article might embody the creator’s private opinions and don’t mirror The Crypto Primary opinion. Readers are inspired to do thorough analysis earlier than making any funding selections. The Crypto Primary shouldn’t be accountable for any monetary losses.
