Key Takeaways
-
A latest audit report has exonerated Charles Hoskinson and IO of prices that they misappropriated 318 million ADA.
-
Key figures within the marketing campaign for accountability have accepted the report’s findings.
-
Hoskinson has accepted an apology from @FredCardano, who led a lot of the criticism towards him.
In September, an exterior audit exonerated Cardano Developer Enter Output (IO) and founder Charles Hoskinson of prices that they misappropriated 318 million ADA in unredeemed “vouchers” left over from Cardano’s Preliminary Coin Providing (ICO).
The publication of the audit report has quelled a lot of the criticism levelled towards Hoskinson, who on Monday, Oct. 6 agreed to bury the hatchet with a key determine within the motion to research him.
In Could 2025, NFT artist Masato Alexander accused Hoskinson/IO of utilizing Cardano’s genesis key to misappropriate 318 million ADA tied to unredeemed ICO vouchers.
In response to Alexander, modifications made throughout Cardano’s Allegra Onerous Fork in 2021 diverted unclaimed ADA to the Cardano treasury, blocking rightful voucher holders from receiving their tokens.
The allegations sparked outrage in the neighborhood, prompting a fierce response from Hoskinson, who denied the costs and lashed out at media retailers he accused of spreading misinformation.
To make clear the scenario, IO employed the legislation agency McDermott, Will & Emery, and the forensic accounting agency BDO to conduct an intensive audit.
The investigation in the end concluded that 99.7% of ADA linked to vouchers was redeemed, and that allegations of theft and improper ledger manipulation had been unsubstantiated.
For a lot of within the Cardano neighborhood, the report corroborated what Hoskinson had mentioned all alongside—that the quantity of unclaimed vouchers was negligible, and that IO by no means moved or manipulated any unredeemed ADA.
The 318 million ADA transaction cited by Alexander and different critics was traced to a documented genesis-key operation used for protocol-level staking rewards distribution, to not transfer unclaimed ADA into personal management.
In gentle of the audit, key figures who had campaigned for transparency and accountability have accepted the report’s findings.
On Monday, the X account, @FredCardano, which helped propagate suspicion towards Hoskinson, introduced that it will droop key channels used to arrange petitions towards Hoskinson.
These embrace the account itself, the Cardano Moral Oversight Discord, and a stake delegator critics had organized round in efforts to resolve the matter.
