Hoskinson "Cardano can win the Bitcoin DeFi market"

▲ Charles Hoskinson, Bitcoin (BTC), Cardano (ADA)/AI generated image

Cardano (ADA) is attempting to break through the undervaluation controversy with a strategic move targeting the Bitcoin (BTC) DeFi market. Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, identified the decentralized and privacy-focused Bitcoin bridge market as the largest untapped area in the industry, stating, “This is a competition we can win.”

U.Today reported on May 21 (local time) that Hoskinson emphasized Cardano's potential to penetrate Bitcoin DeFi in relation to Starknet's launch of the strkBTC Bitcoin bridge. He claimed that there is no clear market leader in this sector yet, and while excellent teams are pursuing this market, Cardano has a first-mover advantage and suitable technology.

The background to Cardano turning its attention to Bitcoin DeFi is a significant discrepancy between its speculative value and actual usage. According to the article, Cardano's ADA traded at $0.25, with a market capitalization of $9.14 billion. In contrast, the total value locked (TVL) in Cardano's DeFi sector amounted to only $127.81 million, plummeting about 80% from its peak at the end of 2024. The network's daily revenue also remained at $477.

Hoskinson's vision focuses on securing Bitcoin liquidity faster than Starknet. While Starknet has just begun launching its Phase 3 strkBTC bridge, Cardano is pushing its private blockchain Midnight, launched last March, as a key card. Midnight is designed based on an unspent transaction output (UTXO) structure, making it structurally compatible with Bitcoin, and is described as a network that can bring BTC liquidity through zero-knowledge protocols.

U.Today evaluated Hoskinson's remark, "This is a competition we can win," as less of a mere slogan and more of a strategic plan to inject external capital into Cardano's underutilized smart contracts and defend its multi-billion dollar valuation. The analysis suggests that the Bitcoin DeFi market could provide the network effects that Cardano currently lacks.

However, the pressure surrounding Cardano is also growing. Hoskinson strongly refuted past rumors that the Japanese community was formed by phone scammers during the ICO era, calling them completely false. He cited an official audit of early sales vouchers as evidence, but U.Today stated that the depth of these controversies shows how significant the stakes are for Cardano and Hoskinson by May 2026.

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