Hoskinson Says His Mission at Cardano Is Complete, With Leios Upgrade Still on the Roadmap
Key Facts
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said his mission with the project was over during a livestream titled "Finishing Cardano" on Nov. 13, 2026, according to a TokenPost report. Hoskinson made the statement while discussing the stage the network’s development had reached, and the report on the broadcast said it did not mean he was leaving the project. The report said his aim was to explain what he considers complete, what Input Output still has to deliver, and why he intends to keep building on Cardano. The available facts contain no verified figures on ADA trading during the Nov. 14 session, and do not establish that the statement caused a price move. The story therefore centers on how Hoskinson described his role and the work still listed on the development roadmap.
Hoskinson identified the Leios upgrade as the remaining protocol milestone under Input Output’s responsibility. He said, "The last pieces we are responsible for are done once Leios is implemented," linking completion of his responsibility for those pieces to the upgrade. This gives his statement that his mission is over a narrower meaning than an announcement that he is leaving the project; the report on the broadcast said he explained what he considers complete and what the company still has to deliver. That means Leios remained a practical focus in his remarks about the company’s role in the protocol being complete, rather than a step he said had already been completed. The statement sets no separate completion date for Leios, while official Cardano documents place related components within the targeted Dijkstra phases.
Cardano’s official roadmap includes the first phase of the Dijkstra upgrade, targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, to activate Linear Leios alongside a set of ledger and Plutus improvements. The documents describe this phase as a hard fork that creates a new ledger era and link it to Linear Leios activation. This places the upgrade Hoskinson named within a development phase with a stated target date, alongside other network improvements. The date on the roadmap is a target for the first phase, not confirmation that the upgrade has gone live. The available source also provides no update on whether it has been completed or its schedule changed. The second phase targets Ouroboros Peras activation in the second quarter of 2027, as part of a hard fork within the same Dijkstra era.
Hoskinson said his next work would move "from building Cardano to building on top of it," according to the report on the broadcast. The report said he put Midnight at the center of that work, alongside Midnight City and Bitcoin DeFi. This direction points to his continuing work on projects linked to the ecosystem, with a stated focus different from protocol development, whose completion he tied to the Leios upgrade. The mention of these projects does not mean the work remaining at Input Output is finished; he explicitly named Leios as the remaining protocol milestone. The available report gave no dates or figures for these upcoming projects. It also did not link them to a specific change in ADA’s value or market performance.
The Dijkstra phases are subject to mainnet governance procedures: Cardano documents state that every hard fork requires a ratification action by delegated representatives, or DReps, stake pool operators, or SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee. This requirement covers both phases on the roadmap, so listing them with target dates is not enough to complete activation on mainnet. For the second phase, the documents say Peras will be activated in a hard fork within Dijkstra in the second quarter of 2027, subject to governance ratification. In the background to development, Cardano said in a weekly update dated May 29, 2026, that treasury funding for Leios was approved with 88% support. The update added that an amendment to CIP-0164 reduced certificate size by 40 times, as part of work related to network development.
In the market, Investing.com recorded ADA’s close at $0.1548 on Nov. 14, 2026, down 8.14% on the day, with a trading range of $0.1545 to $0.1689 in session data. The same record showed the coin had fallen 3.32% on Nov. 13 to $0.1685. The Nov. 14 reading does not match the 8.8% figure in the story headline; the available data records 8.14% for that day. In an earlier comparison during the month, ADA fell 8.36% on Nov. 5, according to Investing.com data. In the broader market, a report by the site described Bitcoin’s decline as putting it on track for its worst week since early June, with a weekly drop of more than 10% in the week ended Nov. 13. These data do not attribute ADA’s move to Hoskinson’s statement.