Broadcasting on November 11 from “heat, sunny Colorado,” Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson stated he expects RealFi to turn into the dominant liquidity engine throughout the Cardano–Midnight stack and push on-chain worth to the billion-dollar mark throughout the subsequent 12 months. “RealFi would be the TVL monster for Cardano and Midnight alike. Billions and billions of {dollars},” he stated, including a concrete goal: “I need a TVL of over a billion {dollars} by the top of 2026.”
How Hoskinson Desires To Obtain A $1 Billion Cardano TVL
The pledge situates RealFi—Cardano’s long-trailed push into micro-lending and real-world credit score rails—because the centerpiece of a broader liquidity plan that spans Bitcoin inflows, privacy-preserving DeFi on Midnight, and trustless cross-chain settlement.
Hoskinson described Midnight as a fourth-generation crypto platform designed for “rational privateness, selective disclosure, and cooperative economics,” positioning it as a impartial L2-to-everyone that routes id, compliance and privateness logic off-chain whereas settling into whichever networks maintain customers and liquidity. “Midnight’s dream is to be a layer 2 to everybody. You possibly can deploy into Ethereum, you possibly can deploy into Solana, you possibly can deploy into Cardano,” he stated.
He tied that structure instantly again to ADA demand and stake-pool economics. “Midnight exists as a sensible contract on Cardano […] If Midnight is closely used, it creates ADA utilization,” Hoskinson stated. Charges could also be abstracted, however “there needs to be ADA on the finish of the rainbow,” with Midnight’s staking paying the Knight token to SPOs on Cardano so “you make ADA and Knight.” He argued this design will increase transaction load on Cardano, broadens listings for Cardano-native belongings, and opens “new income streams for stake pool operators.”
On interoperability, Hoskinson stated the ultimate stage of the Midnight rollout features a bidirectional recursive-SNARK bridge with Cardano that removes conventional bridge operators. “On the Cardano aspect, we added BLS assist […] either side can have trustless bridging functionality.”
He paired that with efficiency claims—“5,000 TPS and sub-second block time” for the proof-aggregation position—and quick settlement as soon as Ouroboros Peras lands, framing Midnight as a proof engine and coordination layer that may fold the state of related chains and return constant-size proofs “validated on a cellular phone.”
The liquidity plan extends to Bitcoin and RealFi. On Bitcoin DeFi, Hoskinson stated the staff has “been in a position to supply greater than 24,000 BTC” that might transfer, whereas acknowledging the gating objects are yield merchandise and finalizing the know-how stack. His RealFi feedback have been unequivocal: the initiative is “going to be an enormous [expletive] factor subsequent 12 months,” with good contracts “being written proper now,” and he reiterated the thesis that peer-to-peer micro-lending throughout Africa, South America and Southeast Asia can anchor on-chain credit score flows. “Billions and billions of {dollars},” he stated.
Midnight’s go-to-market cadence is constructed round privacy-first DeFi and cross-chain composability. Hoskinson desires privacy-enabled stablecoins and DEXs on Midnight and was express about his distaste for centralized, asset-backed stables: “They are often frozen at any time […] That’s not a cryptocurrency.” He pointed to algorithmic, personal designs as the popular path and stated oracles and bridges will arrive through decentralized integrations quite than bespoke native rewrites. “When chainlink? […] We will simply use a trustless bridge and proofs and trusted execution environments to ferry the data over.”
He additionally highlighted early traction metrics and group packages designed to speed up adoption. On Midnight’s scavenger hunt, he claimed “in 21 days, extra compute has been expended […] than the primary few years of Bitcoin,” with detailed numbers promised on the upcoming Midnight Summit close to London. For ecosystem development, he plans to recruit and pay 500 Midnight ambassadors in 2026, funneling a part of their remuneration into Midnight DeFi and focusing on “lots of of hundreds of month-to-month lively customers” and important cross-chain transaction circulate.
The AMA featured an prolonged critique of the Cardano Basis’s governance and incentive construction, which he argued has impeded crucial integrations equivalent to stablecoins. “It’s the improper construction, improper governance, improper management,” he stated, calling for community-elected board oversight and printed KPIs. He contrasted that with what he referred to as “robust love” for a maturing protocol: “Cardano’s grown up. It must go to school […] You by no means abandon your youngsters. You simply basically change your relationship.”
At press time, ADA traded at $0.59.
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