Commenting on the launch of Starknet’s strkBTC Bitcoin bridge, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said that the sector of decentralized and personal BTC bridges is the most important untapped area of interest within the business and “a race we will win”.
This bold rhetoric from Hoskinson completely matches the tough actuality of DefiLlama’s on-chain knowledge, which reveals Cardano critically wants an influx of exterior capital, and a transfer towards Bitcoin might give the community precisely the lacking community impact it lacks.
Proper now, the community constructed round ADA reveals a deep hole between the blockchain’s speculative valuation and its precise utilization. The ADA token is buying and selling at $0.25, giving the undertaking a powerful $9.14 billion market capitalization.

Nevertheless, the whole worth locked (TVL) in Cardano’s DeFi sector stands at simply $127.81 million, practically 80% beneath the height ranges of late 2024, whereas the community’s every day income quantities to a symbolic $477.
Plans to outpace Starknet and seize Bitcoin quantity
To win this race towards Starknet, which is just starting to roll out its three-phase strkBTC bridge, Cardano is placing a serious trump card on the desk within the type of Midnight, the non-public blockchain launched in March. This sovereign companion community is constructed on a UTXO structure, making it structurally appropriate with Bitcoin and permitting it to import BTC liquidity by ZK protocols.
This makes the slogan “This Is a Race We Can Win” look extra like Hoskinson’s strategic plan to fill Cardano’s underutilized sensible contracts with exterior capital with a purpose to defend its multibillion-dollar valuation.
Strain round Cardano can also be intensifying because of inside tensions in key markets, as Hoskinson concurrently confronted a backlash from Japanese delegates. The Cardano founder has been compelled to publicly struggle again towards resurfaced rumors claiming that the Japanese neighborhood was initially shaped by telephone scammers through the ICO period.
Hoskinson harshly dismissed these claims as fully false, citing the official audit of early-sale vouchers. Nevertheless, the sheer depth of those disputes highlights simply how excessive the stakes are for Cardano and him particularly – and for the crypto business total – in Might 2026.

