Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Cardano and CEO of Input Output Global, used a June 13 livestream from Colorado to argue that Cardano’s governance discussions should move away from X and into more purpose-built community spaces. His central point was not that broadcast platforms have no value, but that they are poorly suited for strategic coordination, budget formation, and long-running governance disputes.
Hoskinson Urges Cardano Governance to Move Beyond X
Hoskinson framed X, formerly Twitter, as a “broadcast channel” optimized for visibility, spectacle, and conflict rather than structured decision-making. He said Cardano’s governance debate has become too dependent on that environment, making it difficult for the ecosystem to align on commercialization, treasury priorities, and strategy. “This is just simply put the wrong environment for strategy and this is the wrong environment for goal setting. This is the wrong environment for collaboration. This is the wrong environment for building.”
He argued that Cardano should distinguish between channels used to market the ecosystem and spaces used to negotiate governance decisions. In his view, X remains useful for broadcasting “vision, strategy, successes, and why you’re going to win,” but not for working through the internal disagreements that shape governance. “If we broadcast the dirty laundry of governance in a broadcast medium, what ends up happening is governance becomes rage bait. Governance becomes a fight and a spectacle. And any person who tries to bring something in, they fail.”
Hoskinson tied the issue to several Cardano-related commercialization efforts he said are intended to expand usage, liquidity, and infrastructure. He cited Real Fi, Pogan, Project Kaye, Midnight, and Dataliths while arguing that proposals with potential ecosystem benefits are being judged inside an adversarial public arena. He also said Intersect, the Cardano member-based organization associated with governance coordination, did not become the central forum he expected after the 1694 governance process, in part because the broader conversation remained dominated by X.
Calls for Discord-Led Strategy and Collaboration
Hoskinson’s preferred alternative is a Discord-based governance environment modeled partly on the Midnight community server, which he said has about 49,000 members. He described that server as more constructive because it is moderated, focused on building, and centered on shared objectives. “I absolutely love the Midnight Discord. It’s my favorite place because every time I go there, every time I go there, we’re talking about how to make Midnight bigger, better, greater, and every person can’t wait to come bring to me and show me the thing they’re working on.”
The livestream repeatedly returned to three conditions Hoskinson said are necessary for governance to function: empathy, shared goals, and aligned incentives. He said those conditions are hard to establish in a broadcast mechanism because participants are rewarded for winning attention rather than building consensus. “Effective conversation means that both parties, all the parties involved in the conversation have three characteristics. They have empathy. They understand each other’s positions.”
Hoskinson said a dedicated governance space could support goal-setting, strategy formation, constitutional updates, and budget alignment before decisions move to broader approval. He emphasized that moving governance discussion to Discord would not mean abandoning X or other broadcast channels, but using them for marketing after internal debates are resolved. “We can have our fights there and we can figure all this stuff out there. And you know what? We can build empathy with each other. We can come up with some shared goals.”
AI Transparency Note: This article was prepared with the assistance of an AI system based on the sources listed and was reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication. All quotes, data points, and factual claims are intended to be grounded in the cited source material; however, errors cannot be ruled out entirely.