Charles Hoskinson hits back at critics calling Cardano a cult

After facing harsh criticism over his suggestion of contingent staking to help the cryptocurrency industry meet regulatory requirements amid heightened scrutiny over the sector, Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson has hit back at the critics that called the Cardano community a cult.

Addressing the attacks on his views and the Cardano community as a whole, Hoskinson highlighted that contingent staking was merely “an optional hypothetical feature that isn’t even at the [Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP)] stage,” as he explained in a tweet posted on February 21.

And the people who hate Cardano call it a cult. Seems pretty grown up to me. CS is an optional hypothetical feature that isn't even at the CIP stage, and we have this rhetoric discounting the last seven years of my life. It's a bittersweet thing watching an ecosystem grow https://t.co/A8XJBMiUBF

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) February 21, 2023

Specific criticism

In particular, the Cardano founder focused on the comment by the pseudonymous retail investor Barren Wuffett, who referred to Hoskinson as a “liability at this point,” stating he would rather pick the person behind the ADA whale Twitter profile “to speak for the vision of Cardano and represent the Cardano community.”

As for the ADA whale, they have earlier voiced the view that “the road from violating L1 neutrality with [contingent staking (CS)] to excluding people from Cardano is a direct one” but that they “could probably live with it” if CS was voted in through Voltaire.

Notably, this isn’t the first time that Hoskinson has addressed opinions suggesting that Cardano is a cult. In June 2021, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz expressed his shock at Cardano’s valuation at the time, stating that “they have done something to create this weird cult.”

Cardano price analysis

Meanwhile, the value of Cardano’s native token at press time stood at $0.39, recording a 2.9% decline on the day but still an increase of 9.53% across the previous week and a 6.81% gain over the past 30 days, as per data retrieved on February 21.

Notably, the drama surrounding Hoskinson’s proposal doesn’t seem to have as much effect on the price of ADA as the developments directly relating to the ecosystem, such as the network’s recent Valentine (SECP) upgrade, which had given strength to the price of Cardano at the time.

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