Yet the address was anything but triumphalist. Hoskinson lamented that social-media virality has reduced public discourse to “a storm in a teacup,” eroding the incentive to verify allegations before branding rivals as criminals. “When I was growing up,” he recalled, “you had to have some momentum before you accuse someone of being a criminal.” Now, he said, accusations spread “like breathing air,” and when they prove unfounded “there’s no consequences—you just move on.”
Personal fatigue permeated the address—he spoke of torn tendons, hair loss, and sleepless travel—but not resignation. Citing his own bullet-ant initiation ritual in the Amazon, Hoskinson framed suffering as a test of resilience and rallied listeners to “keep the faith despite all of this.” The industry, he concluded, must outgrow “hyper-transactional late-stage capitalism” and rediscover a moral project equal to its technological ambition. “We deserve it,” he said, insisting that Cardano’s best days “are not behind us; they are in front of us.”
At press time, ADA traded at $0.7635.
