Cardano’s Charlie Hoskinson struggles to defend himself against accusations of being a scammer

Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of both Cardano and Ethereum, spent Saturday, May 24, unloading on critics who’ve spent weeks accusing him of manipulating the Cardano ledger to control $619 million in ADA.

In a lengthy X post, Charlie claimed that the real issue has nothing to do with fraud, misconduct, or ethical failure. He said the attacks are coming from “a group of deeply disgruntled, now deranged, people” who have decided he’s a villain and will stop at nothing to ruin his name and his company, Input Output Global (IOG).

Charlie argued that these people operate with the same political rage that Americans saw with Hillary Clinton and now-President Donald Trump. “Every event involving controversial public figures is viewed through a political lens and transformed into either a negative or positive spin,” he wrote.

In Charles’ view, Cardano has no defense mechanism against what he described as “derangement syndrome,” which he said could “ultimately kill the ecosystem if left unchecked.”

Hoskinson links criticism to growing online hatred

Charlie said his haters will twist any Cardano success into a personal scam. If Midnight, Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain, makes billions for ADA holders, they’ll call it an exit scam. If Leios, another protocol in the works, gets delivered, he claimed they’ll say it was someone else’s idea. “It will worsen yearly and eventually become complete fantasies and bizarre conspiracies,” he added.

He also claimed the hate may one day lead to violence, saying some critics are so far gone they might try to physically harm him or IOG employees. “It saddens and disgusts me,” he wrote. “Something is causing this mental illness on a mass scale, and it destroys a lot of lives, especially the people afflicted.”

Charlie said these people live in “a self-inflicted hell where nothing but negativity is present, spiraling faster each month— isolation and despair combined with a rot of the soul.” He ended his post saying he’ll keep going and invited readers to “consider how to cure this cancer together.”

Allegations trace back to 2021 MIR transaction

The storm around Charlie began weeks ago, after Masato Alexander, an NFT creator, alleged that Charlie used a “genesis key” during the Allegra hard fork in 2021 to rewrite the Cardano ledger and reroute a massive amount of ADA to staking and treasury pools.

Masato pointed to a specific MIR (Move Instantaneous Rewards) transaction dated October 24, 2021, that moved 318 million ADA from reserves. The transfer, which was publicly visible on Cardanoscan, quickly became the focus of online speculation.

Critics questioned why that volume of ADA was moved without a public explanation. The suspicion was that the action wasn’t authorized or transparent, and people began asking how Cardano handles dormant or unclaimed ADA tokens. The accusations picked up steam, leading to mounting pressure on Charlie and the Cardano Foundation to respond.

Charlie first addressed the allegations on May 6, calling them “false and misleading.” He said the redemptions remained open for three years after that transaction. He also said that the whole redemption process stretched over seven years, giving original buyers plenty of time to claim their ADA.

On May 18, Charlie returned to X to clarify his point again, saying: “IOG never gave itself 350 million unclaimed ADA. This is a lie. The vast majority was claimed, and the remaining was forfeited after seven years of waiting was donated to Intersect.”

At the moment, the Cardano Foundation is working on an official audit report, which Charlie said will address the full timeline and provide clarity. But the report hasn’t been released, and until it lands, the noise around the issue isn’t going anywhere.

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