Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson highlighted the overlooked potential of Bitcoin and XRP DeFi in an interview with Token2049.
Mr. Hoskinson at a conference in Singapore spoke We talk with Crypto Banter host Ran Neuner about the future of Cardano, DeFi challenges, and untapped opportunities. XRP DeFi.
He acknowledged that Cardano is lagging behind competitors such as Solana in the DeFi race, noting that Cardano’s total value locked (TVL) remains below $1 billion. Stablecoin adoption is sluggish. However, he stressed that the market does not price projects based solely on DeFi metrics.
Cardano founder identifies XRP $100 billion DeFi vacuum
Hoskinson described XRP as a sleeping giant in the DeFi space. Specifically, he pointed out that the assets are valued at more than $100 billion, but have little or no valuation. Native revenue generating infrastructure.
“Nearly $100 billion worth of XRP is in circulation with no yield. There is no DeFi ecosystem to match it.” Hoskinson said.
He suggested that combining XRP with real-world assets (RWA) and yield-producing products could potentially attract a significant portion of that capital into the DeFi ecosystem.
Cardano founders believe that with the right infrastructure, DeFi on XRP has the potential to become a multi-billion dollar ecosystem. Especially on a platform like Flare. Start offering yield Opportunity for XRP holders.
Advantages of Bitcoin DeFi and UTXO
Hoskinson also sees great potential in Bitcoin DeFi, another highly undervalued sector despite Bitcoin’s $2.4 trillion market capitalization. In his words:
“In fact, we have a huge native advantage for Bitcoin DeFi because we are a UTXO and Bitcoin is also a UTXO. You can create Cardano smart contracts that compile and run on top of Bitcoin.”
He argued that this interoperability gives Cardano the advantage of unlocking hidden value in both the Bitcoin and XRP networks.
Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Talks Bitcoin and XRP DeFi Opportunities 📈
“I think Bitcoin DeFi is the biggest effort. Cardano’s UTxO allows smart contracts to be compiled and executed on top of Bitcoin.”
“XRP DeFi also has huge untapped opportunities.” @IOHK_Charles on @crypto_banter pic.twitter.com/2jZkys8mjv
— Cardanians (CRDN) (@Cardanians_io) October 7, 2025
Midnight, Scaling, and What’s Next for Cardano
Additionally, Hoskinson shared the following updates: midnightA sidechain focused on data protection for Cardano. He noted that Midnight has already attracted more than 100 partnerships and integrations, including Brave, Blockchain.com, and Bitcoin.com.
He also highlighted Hydra, a layer 2 scaling solution that can process up to 1 million transactions per second. However, he emphasized the need for faster commercialization.
With Cardano’s on-chain financial governance now in effect and $1.5 billion available to the community, Hoskinson said the project is entering a new era of decentralized development.
“The community just approved our first budget, and we still have over 200 engineers working in and around the Cardano ecosystem.” he said.
Basically, Cardano missed the last DeFi wave, but Hoskinson is now focused on the untapped potential of Bitcoin and XRP DeFi. These two networks have a lot of capital, but very little profitable infrastructure.
