Charles Hoskinson has issued a direct public appeal to the Cardano community during a recent livestream titled 'Devs versus Builders', urging unity around the Midnight Foundation's strategic pivot. According to the latest reports, Hoskinson warned that pushing back against successful projects could discourage other developers from choosing to build on Cardano going forward. He emphasized that Cardano's purpose extends beyond serving as a smart-contract platform or facilitating ADA transactions, arguing the network creates more value when developers use its infrastructure to build applications that attract real users, customers, and economic activity. This represents a significant escalation from his previous criticism, as Hoskinson now views the current community friction as a governance and culture argument that could drag on builder confidence rather than a technical concern.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, has declared that artificial intelligence has fundamentally destroyed the value of developer counts as a growth metric for blockchain projects. According to reports from BeInCrypto, Hoskinson spoke on Sunday defending his position that AI coding assistants have removed the scarcity of human coders, allowing anyone to ship working software without technical knowledge. He argued that 'You can have people who have no technical knowledge and no experience use these tools to look like a developer. So it's no longer a scarce and finite resource'. The practical challenge lies in verification, as code bounties and hackathons now face issues with entrants passing off AI-generated output as their own work.
The Midnight Foundation, a privacy-focused blockchain built on Cardano, recently cut part of its team responsible for recruiting outside coders and shifted focus toward what Hoskinson calls builders. As reported by BeInCrypto, this strategic pivot reflects the broader challenge facing blockchain projects that have traditionally relied on developer counts as a key performance indicator. The foundation is currently running three hackathons with prize pools worth $26,500, including a Korea contest that opened on September 1, despite Hoskinson's criticism of these metrics. Hoskinson acknowledged the contradiction, stating he sees things differently than the foundation does and has broken with Cardano institutions before, having stepped away from ADA promotion in June.
Cardano (ADA) trades near $0.21, up 0.8% over 24 hours and unmoved by the strategy shift. According to BeInCrypto reports, Hoskinson wants ventures with paying users and outside investors instead of relying on developer counts. The success of this approach will likely be determined in the next two quarters, as the market tests whether builders can arrive faster than developers leave. Hoskinson's latest comments do not introduce new technical milestones for Midnight or ADA, but represent a public appeal aimed at internal community dynamics. For traders, the relevant signal is less about price and more about whether the Cardano Foundation follows through on public promotion of Midnight and whether visible tension between 'devs' and 'builders' eases enough to keep developer activity flowing into the broader blockchain ecosystem.
