{"id":73329,"date":"2026-02-20T16:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=73329"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:01:32","slug":"cardano-hard-fork-expected-next-month-leios-still-this-year-hoskinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=73329","title":{"rendered":"Cardano Hard Fork Expected Next Month, Leios Still \u2018This Year\u2019: Hoskinson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Charles Hoskinson said Cardano is tracking toward a hard fork \u201cnext month,\u201d while the long-discussed Leios scalability work remains on schedule for \u201cthis year,\u201d in a Feb. 19 livestream recorded after a trip through Japan and a stop at Consensus in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Hoskinson framed the next few weeks as a convergence point for two parallel roadmaps: Cardano\u2019s protocol and developer-stack upgrades on one side, and the Midnight network launch he expects \u201ccoming next month\u201d on the other, an effort he described as unusually difficult to execute even for teams with prior experience shipping major chains.<\/p>\n

Cardano Momentum: Midnight, LayerZero And USDCx<\/h2>\n

In the livestream<\/a>, Hoskinson spent his opening stretch recapping what he characterized as a productive Consensus week, pointing to \u201ca lot of great announcements\u201d and relationships around the Midnight ecosystem, including infrastructure and distribution names he said were involved with the network. He argued that the ability to launch a large, exchange-listed project like Midnight <\/a>is itself a signal about Cardano\u2019s maturity as a platform for \u201ctier one\u201d efforts.<\/p>\n

On the Cardano side, he highlighted a newly announced LayerZero integration that he said connects Cardano \u201cto more than 80 blockchains,\u201d positioning it as a step away from the perception that the network operates in isolation. In the same segment, Hoskinson pointed to USDCx<\/a> as a stablecoin-like asset he said is designed for \u201cthese non-EVM systems,\u201d and emphasized the user-experience work around exchange flows\u2014\u201cautoconvert,\u201d as he described it, so users can move value \u201cstraight to the exchange, straight back from the exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also drew a distinction between USDCx and \u201cbasically USDC,\u201d saying the tradeoff for Cardano users is an asset that, in his telling, preserves \u201cprivacy\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t be frozen.\u201d Hoskinson positioned that as \u201cthe best compromise\u201d available for a \u201ctier one stablecoin of that nature\u201d in the Cardano ecosystem, while arguing that the LayerZero integration could open the door to \u201ceight major stablecoins\u201d over time, depending on integration sequencing.<\/p>\n

Hard Fork \u2018Next Month,\u2019 Leios \u2018This Year\u2019<\/h2>\n

The most concrete near-term timing signal came when Hoskinson addressed the protocol schedule directly, saying: \u201cCardano hard fork is happening I believe next month. But you know the community is kind of working its way through that and getting these things done.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same breath, he reiterated that Leios, Cardano\u2019s scalability initiative, remains on track, noting recent travel and discussions with product manager Michael Smolenski about progress. \u201cAll things considered we\u2019re pretty happy with the rate of progress of Cardano,\u201d Hoskinson said, while also pointing to a new Plutus version, continued development of Aiken, and \u201cnode diversity coming this year,\u201d alongside Leios.<\/p>\n

Hoskinson also flagged developer activity he expects in March, referencing a \u201cDev Builder Fest down in Argentina\u201d and describing the \u201cintegration of Pyth<\/a>\u201d into the ecosystem, which he presented as the arrival of a \u201ctier one Oracle\u201d for Cardano.<\/p>\n

Beyond shipping timelines, Hoskinson used the livestream to argue that the industry\u2019s central fight is shifting from enforcement actions to culture and narrative, particularly around non-custodial wallets and permissionless settlement. He warned about what he called \u201cfactions\u201d that want crypto transactions routed through \u201cpermission federated networks owned and operated by large financial institutions,\u201d and singled out US policy debates as part of that backdrop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s not okay is to build a network that\u2019s forever owned and operated by five or 10 or 20 banks and they basically lord and leverage that power and position over the users,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd once they have absolute control, they just simply flip a switch and you\u2019re at their mercy and they own all your money. And unfortunately, the system is moving in that direction right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

At press time, ADA traded at $0.2748.<\/p>\n

\"Cardano<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Hoskinson said Cardano is tracking toward a hard fork \u201cnext month,\u201d while the long-discussed Leios scalability work remains on schedule for \u201cthis year,\u201d in a Feb. 19 livestream recorded after a trip through Japan and a stop at Consensus in Hong Kong. Hoskinson framed the next few weeks as a convergence point for two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-73329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}