When a public chain prepares to sell a large amount of its own tokens and buy competitive assets, the market's first question is often: Does the team still believe in itself? The 100 million USD ADA transfer plan proposed by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson was exposed last week and immediately drew fierce criticism from Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, pushing the issue of "how to manage a public chain's treasury" to the forefront.
Proposal Details and Purpose
On June 13th, Hoskinson submitted a proposal on a community governance platform, suggesting using treasury funds to sell approximately 100 million USD worth of ADA through OTC and TWAP methods, and converting these funds into Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins like USDM, USDA, and IUSD.
He pointed out that the weak liquidity of Cardano's DeFi ecosystem has diminished user experience, and by raising liquidity, they hope to attract new funds and applications. The proposal also plans to use part of the proceeds to repurchase ADA and establish a governance board to oversee the treasury.
Opposition and Price Reaction
Three days later, Yakovenko directly stated on X that the decision was "so dumb", believing the treasury's primary task is preservation, and only short-term US Treasury bonds covering 18-36 months of expenses are necessary. He questioned:
This is so stupid. Projects should keep short-term Treasury bills for 18-36 months as backup funds, and that's it. Why would anyone want a team to buy and hold Bitcoin for them when they can do it themselves? Why pay for something useless.
This move is equivalent to admitting "BTC > ADA", causing even more narrative damage. After the news broke, ADA continued to decline on the 13th-14th. At the time of writing, ADA was trading at $0.63, continuously hovering at low points over the past week, with a total market cap of around $23 billion.
Hoskinson's Response: Resolving On-Chain Liquidity Insufficiency
Regarding the community's opposition, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson also posted on X last night, reiterating his thoughts and emphasizing the need to solve the on-chain liquidity insufficiency:
Today is Monday, June 16th, 2025. While some of you are endlessly talking about feelings, ego, narcissism, or anything that makes you feel psychologically safe, others are coding, investing, collaborating, and trading.
We are not in a static game with guaranteed seats. We are in an ocean full of sharks trying to devour us every day. They steal our talent and decentralized applications (DApps). They have unfair advantages in venture capital and media. They cut corners on protocols and software to speed up time to market.
We must decide if we want to win. If we really want to have a billion users. If we really hope for Cardano to be in every household.
After all is said and done, Cardano still has stablecoin issues. Only $33 million is deployed on-chain. We have ways to solve this problem. Calling me narcissistic, toxic, or dictatorial will not change this objective reality.
You'll just make me work on my ranch and stop caring, and the issued stablecoins will remain at $33 million. The genesis keys are already gone.
You must decide for yourselves whether to solve the problem or just complain about it.
Growth is difficult, but this is the current situation of our ecosystem. This is tough love, but if I don't speak up, I'm being irresponsible to you.
