Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson said during a Feb. 19 livestream that the network is on track for a hard fork "next month" and that its long-awaited Leios scalability upgrade remains scheduled for delivery sometime this year, while also outlining what he described as growing ecosystem momentum around cross-chain connectivity, stablecoin access and the forthcoming Midnight network launch.
What Happened: Hard Fork Timeline Confirmed
Hoskinson addressed the protocol schedule directly: "Cardano 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."
He framed the coming weeks as a convergence of two parallel tracks — protocol and developer-stack upgrades on one side, and the Midnight network launch on the other. He described Midnight, which he also expects "coming next month," as a project unusually difficult to ship even for teams with experience launching major chains.
On ecosystem developments, Hoskinson pointed to a newly announced LayerZero integration he said connects Cardano "to more than 80 blockchains," along with a stablecoin-like asset called USDCx designed for non-EVM systems. He drew a distinction between USDCx and standard USDC, saying the tradeoff gives Cardano users an asset that preserves "privacy" and "can't be frozen" — what he called "the best compromise" for a tier-one stablecoin in the ecosystem.
On Leios, he said discussions with product manager Michael Smolenski left him satisfied with the pace of progress, and he flagged additional near-term milestones including a new Plutus version, continued Aiken development, node diversity and the integration of Pyth as what he described as a "tier one Oracle" for Cardano ahead of a developer event in Argentina planned for March.
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Why It Matters: Ecosystem Maturity At Stake
Hoskinson used the broader livestream to argue that the industry's central battle is shifting from enforcement actions to questions of custody and settlement architecture.
He warned about what he called "factions" pushing to route crypto transactions through "permission federated networks owned and operated by large financial institutions."
"What's not okay is to build a network that's forever owned and operated by five or 10 or 20 banks and they basically lord and leverage that power and position over the users," he said. "And once they have absolute control, they just simply flip a switch and you're at their mercy and they own all your money."
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