Aptos

Ethereum

Charlie Kirk

Cardano

<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Cardano" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">The money in Cardano's apps is down about 91 percent</a> from its December 2024 peak, and the number of people using the network each day <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">has halved in six months</a>.
One of the oldest big crypto networks has been shrinking for nearly two years.
On October 18, <a href="https://x.com/IOHK_Charles/status/2111286011984818372" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Charles Hoskinson, the chief executive and founder of Input Output</a>, the company behind Cardano, said he is personally writing a new programming language for the network.&nbsp;
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 VIDEO: Charles Hoskinson on assassination of Charlie Kirk (7:19)
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For context, Hoskinson was one of the co-founders of Ethereum, today the second-largest crypto network, according to <a href="https://iog.io/leadership/charles-hoskinson" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">his company's biography</a>. He left before Ethereum launched and later started Input Output, the engineering company that builds Cardano.
A programming language is the tool people use to write software. His plan is that better tools will bring back the builders who left, and with them the users and the money.
Cardano is a blockchain, a public record of transactions maintained by thousands of computers instead of one company. <a href="https://iog.io/leadership/charles-hoskinson" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Input Output</a>, the company Hoskinson co-founded, launched it in 2017.
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<h2 id="how-much-cardano-has-shrunk">How much Cardano has shrunk</h2>
The money held in Cardano's trading and lending apps, a standard measure of a network's health, <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Cardano" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">peaked at $721 million</a> in December 2024.&nbsp;
On October 21, 2026, it stood at $63.8 million, according to DefiLlama, a website that tracks crypto networks.
The slide has been steady.&nbsp;
The total was $269 million in October 2025, $174 million at the start of 2026, and under $66 million every month since July.
The number of people using the network daily <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">fell from about 26,600</a> in the third quarter of 2025 to 18,641 in the fourth and 13,400 in the first quarter of 2026, according to Messari, a crypto research firm.
<figure><img src="https://www.thestreet.com/.image/c_fit%2Ch_675%2Cw_1200/MjI3MDgxNzE5MzM1ODg4Nzgy/whatsapp-image-2026-10-21-at-84510-pm.jpg" height="675" width="1200">
 <figcaption>Money in Cardano's apps has fallen about 91 percent from its December 2024 peak. Source: DefiLlama, Oct. 21, 2026.
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Trading on Cardano's exchanges <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">averaged $2.5 million a day</a> in the first quarter of 2026, down 44 percent from the quarter before.
ADA, the network's coin, <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">fell 27 percent</a> in the first quarter of 2026, and Cardano dropped to 13th place among crypto networks by total value. Three months earlier it was <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q4-2025" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">11th</a>.
The developers on the network have thinned out too.&nbsp;
Electric Capital, a venture firm that counts crypto developers every year, put Cardano at <a href="https://www.developerreport.com/ecosystems/cardano" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">672 active developers</a> in its 2024 report, ranking the network 15th. By October 2025, <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/ethereum-leads-with-16000-new-developers-in-2025-solana-follows-with-11500/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum had 31,869 and Solana had 17,708</a>.
<h2 id="what-is-still-growing">What is still growing</h2>
Two things are moving the other way.&nbsp;
The supply of stablecoins, digital tokens worth one US dollar each, <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Cardano" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">has nearly doubled in a year</a>, to about $70 million. A new dollar token, <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">USDCx</a>, arrived in February 2026 through Circle, the company behind one of the most used dollar tokens in crypto.
Transaction counts have held <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">roughly flat</a> at about 26,000 a day, and 58% of all ADA is locked in staking, a system where holders help run the network in exchange for rewards.
Cardano also shipped new products in 2026.&nbsp;
<a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Midnight</a>, a partner network built for private transactions, opened on March 30, and a speed upgrade called <a href="https://cips.cardano.org/cip/CIP-0164" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Leios</a> is in progress.
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<h2 id="what-hoskinson-announced">What Hoskinson announced</h2>
Asked on October 18 why developers should build on Cardano at all, <a href="https://x.com/IOHK_Charles/status/2111286011984818372" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hoskinson answered</a>, "I'm actually personally developing a programming language for Cardano. It's the first of its kind, enabling intents and PCD via Groth16 proofs."
He named <a href="https://x.com/rvcas" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Lucas Rosa</a>, an engineer at his company Input Output, as his partner on the project. There is no name, technical document or release date yet.
<figure><img src="https://www.thestreet.com/.image/c_fit%2Ch_675%2Cw_1200/MjE5NDIzNTcwOTE5NDMzMjg2/charles-hoskinson-cardano.jpg" height="675" width="1013">
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 Charles Hoskinson, chief executive officer of Input Output, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025.
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"Intents" let a user state the result they want, such as swapping one coin for another at a set price.
"PCD" stands for proof-carrying data.
"Groth16" is the proof system he plans to use, a standard method for making those receipts. It was <a href="https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/260.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">published in 2016</a>, it keeps the receipts small, and it hides the private data underneath.
Whether the result is truly "the first of its kind" is his claim, not an established fact.&nbsp;
Another project, <a href="https://anoma.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Anoma</a>, already builds its network around intents.
Based on the features he named, the closest existing tools are languages built around this kind of proof, such as <a href="https://book.cairo-lang.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cairo</a>, which runs the Starknet network, rather than everyday languages like Rust.&nbsp;
Cardano's privacy-focused partner network, Midnight, already has its own language, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/10/19/cardano-founder-charles-hoskinson-is-building-a-new-programming-language-for-the-network" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">called Compact</a>.
Hoskinson has not said publicly why Cardano needs a new language instead of adopting one of those, or an established one like Rust.
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<h2 id="the-languages-crypto-apps-use-today">The languages crypto apps use today</h2>
Each big network has a main language.&nbsp;
Most apps on Ethereum, the largest network for crypto apps, are written in one called Solidity. Solidity writes smart contracts, programs that move money automatically when set conditions are met, and its flexibility has allowed some of the industry's costliest mistakes, including <a href="https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/06/17/critical-update-re-dao-vulnerability" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">the 2016 hack</a> of a fund called The DAO, which lost about $60 million.
Solana and many newer projects <a href="https://solana.com/docs/programs/rust" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">use Rust</a>, a general-purpose language known for catching whole categories of errors before software ever runs.
Cardano's original language, <a href="https://docs.cardano.org/developer-resources/smart-contracts/plutus" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Plutus</a>, is based on an older language called Haskell that many developers find difficult. Its newer option, <a href="https://docs.cardano.org/developer-resources/smart-contracts/aiken" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Aiken</a>, was built to be easier, and Hoskinson's partner Lucas Rosa helped create it.
How many people write in each language is hard to count exactly. In the <a href="https://cardanofoundation.org/blog/2025-developer-ecosystem-survey-results" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cardano Foundation's 2025 developer survey</a>, published December 11, 2025, more than 75 percent of respondents said they write contracts in Aiken, ranking it just ahead of Haskell.
<h2 id="why-a-new-language-matters-more-now">Why a new language matters more now</h2>
Software that acts on its own is the new front.&nbsp;
This year Amazon, Coinbase and Stripe <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/05/07/amazon-rolls-out-ai-agent-stablecoin-payments-platform-with-coinbase-and-stripe" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">began building payment systems</a> designed for artificial intelligence programs that buy things and pay for services without a person involved.
Software that spends money without a person needs to prove what it did, not just claim it. Proving the work without exposing private data is exactly what Hoskinson says his language is for.
His own public code page shows a separate project, <a href="https://github.com/CharlesHoskinson/quinelings/releases/tag/qdl-v1.0.0" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Quinelings</a>, with connection points for two standards, called MCP and A2A, that let AI programs talk to tools and to each other. He has not said whether it relates to the new language.
<h2 id="where-meta-fits">Where Meta fits</h2>
In June 2019, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/facebook-announces-libra-digital-currency-calibra-digital-wallet.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Facebook announced Libra</a>, a digital currency for its billions of users, and built a new language called Move to run it.
Lawmakers pushed back. The project, renamed Diem, was <a href="https://www.silvergate.com/uncategorized/silvergate-purchases-blockchain-payment-network-assets-from-diem/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">sold in January 2022 for $182 million</a>, and Meta's remaining wallet <a href="https://www.americanbanker.com/payments/news/facebooks-novi-digital-wallet-shutting-down" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">shut down later that year</a>. Asked about it in May 2025, <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/05/08/meta-stablecoins-exploration-usdc-circle-diem-libra/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta</a>, said, "That thing's dead."
The language outlived the project. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/15/aptos-labs-a16z-multicoin-facebook-diem-blockchain/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Two teams of former Meta engineers</a> used it to build two networks, <a href="https://totalmarketcap.com/crypto/aptos-apt" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Aptos</a> and <a href="https://totalmarketcap.com/crypto/sui-sui" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Sui</a>, together worth about $5 billion today. Aptos opened on <a href="https://medium.com/aptoslabs/aptos-autumn-is-here-92a8d904eb49" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">October 18, 2022</a>, exactly four years before Hoskinson's announcement.
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 <figcaption>Facebook's currency project is gone. The language it created now powers two networks.
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The parallel has limits. Move checks software for safety before it runs, while Hoskinson's plan would attach its receipts afterward and could also hide private data.
<h2 id="can-cardano-catch-up">Can Cardano catch up</h2>
Closing the gap means catching networks that are far ahead.&nbsp;
<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Solana" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Solana's apps hold about $6 billion</a>, nearly 100 times Cardano's total, and <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Ethereum" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum's hold about $51 billion</a>.
The wider market has been weak too, but Cardano is losing ground. Its app money <a href="https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q1-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">fell 23.5 percent</a> in the first quarter of 2026 while the industry average fell 18.9 percent.
The comeback plan already has several parts running. USDCx is bringing dollar tokens in, Leios is making the network faster, and Midnight is drawing privacy projects. The new language is the newest part, and it has no name or release date.
Whether it works will show in the same numbers this story opened with.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/elon-musk-has-a-bold-answer-to-americas-40-trillion-debt-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Elon Musk has a bold answer to America’s $40 trillion debt crisis</a>

Ethereum co-founder's network lost half its users in six months, plans new language

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