Charles Hoskinson Says Cardano Now Hosts the World’s Largest DAO

• Hoskinson says Cardano now operates the biggest DAO in the crypto industry.
• ADA holders get to vote on network choices and help decide where treasury funds go.
• The treasury keeps growing thanks to a cut of transaction fees and block rewards.

Charles Hoskinson just stirred up fresh talk about crypto governance, claiming Cardano now hosts the biggest DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) in the crypto space. On a recent live broadcast, he highlighted how ADA holders get to vote on network choices and help decide where treasury funds go.

Hoskinson says Cardano now runs the biggest DAO in crypto, at least when you look at how many people actually vote. According to devs, the treasury holds about 1.65 billion ADA (around $429 million), and the community gets to vote on how it’s spent.

The treasury keeps growing thanks to a cut of transaction fees and block rewards, basically a long-term fund to keep building and innovating in the ecosystem.

Hoskinson’s claim ties back to Cardano entering its final development phase – the Voltaire governance era. Under this setup, ADA holders can put forward governance ideas, the community votes on upgrades and spending proposals, and treasury funds get directed to new projects by vote.

The entire system was made possible by the 2024 Chang hard fork and governance upgrades in 2025, which pushed more decision-making power out to the network.

Cardano’s governance setup pulls in different groups, such as delegated reps (DReps), stake pool operators, and a constitutional committee, who help vet proposals before they go live on-chain.

Cardano Critics

Supporters see Cardano as a leading DAO experiment, but critics say it’s still behind on real-world use and on-chain action. Some analysts, like Ali Martinez, note that its TVL (total value locked) has bounced around a lot and never quite caught up to Ethereum or Solana. He even went out of his way to call Cardano the most useless network.

Others observed that DAO voting is often tied to token holdings, so whales can end up with way more say than everyone else.

As for Cardano itself, Hoskinson recently made the point that blockchains can’t just live on white papers anymore, as real adoption will come down to user experience and actual apps people use. Also, Cardano devs are working on Midnight (a privacy-focused sidechain expected to drop in 2026), which should bring more private transaction options to the network.

Related: Cardano ADA Accepted at 137 SPAR Supermarkets in Switzerland