Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson reaffirmed his position on Bitcoin's long-term value trajectory and its evolving role in decentralized finance.
Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference, Hoskinson outlined the vision for the $10 trillion Bitcoin ecosystem, placing its value between $250,000 and $500,000 over the next few years.
Basic Addressed the increasing history of Bitcoin, basic rules, and interaction with other blockchain networks. Hoskinson highlights how the crypto landscape has moved from small mining and forums to global movement, and currently serves more than 550 million participants.
Hoskinson began his remarks reminiscent of the early days of Bitcoin, highlighting the contrast with the massive mining work that existed in the conference. He noted that older, simpler mining setups generated more Bitcoin in their lifetime than today's multi-million dollar equipment.
He then referenced Bitcoin's early infrastructure limitations, including peer-to-peer transactions via PayPal and websites such as Bitmit, which preceded the latest exchange platforms.
Bitcoin's core principles and interoperability hurdles
He repeated three long-standing principles of Bitcoin: the exclusivity of Bitcoin assets, all transactions and fees paid in BTC, and the yields generated only in Bitcoin. He argued that these conditions present obstacles to integrating defi features into Bitcoin.
However, Hoskinson suggested that new infrastructure, wallet layers and smart contract tools could address these limitations without violating core ideals.
To illustrate this, he presented the concept of modular stacks and referred to infrastructure players such as Sergei Lerner, Fairgate Team, Sandial and Bitcoin operating systems.
He highlighted future improvements in finality, security and costs. In particular, he discussed the wallet innovation that allows users to switch between standard and Defi modes, and referenced ongoing work from his team at Input Output Global. Wallet design celebrates the basic rules of Bitcoin, while allowing interaction with defi applications.
The demonstration shows Bitcoin debt access
Previously, demonstrations at Bitcoin Conference introduction Bitcoin is exchanged for Minswap tokens using the Race Wallet interface. This process included the largest transaction fee abstraction of trusts using Babel fees with liquid tokens. Users completed a swap directly in their wallet when paying for Bitcoin fees.
The transaction architecture maintained control over user assets without leaving the Bitcoin network. This provides a notable example of how native Bitcoin can engage with cardano-based Defi applications.
Further development plans from Input and Output Global include integrating Cardinal Protocol from Bitcoin into Bridging USDC into the Cardano ecosystem. The protocol, led by CTO Romain Pellerin, continues to strive to increase interoperability between the two networks. This approach also supports other Bitcoin derivatives, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin.
Hoskinson confirms XRP defi Cardano plan
Hoskinson has previously confirmed Cardano's plans to expand to XRP defi. he Disclosure Continuing work to integrate smart contract functionality into XRP ledgers. The initiative is about to unlock the Cardano network's additional value of approximately $140 billion.
Hoskinson also tackled the historical tensions between the Cardano and XRP communities. Following the recent settlement, he has recognized a new collaboration with Ripple, the biggest contributor of the XRP ledger. The plan includes adding a calculation layer to enable features such as native borrowing and lending to the XRP network.
Meanwhile, Cardano's broader strategies continue to promote tools such as Plutus and Aiken for smart contract compatibility across the network. The team, including IOG's Riley and Brandon, are investigating future prevention environments such as BitVMX, built on the RISC-V architecture to support this cross-chain integration.
