- Hoskinson and Wood both criticize tribal loyalty in blockchain, calling for real technical collaboration.
- Wood suggests cross-platform token use to replace rivalry, Hoskinson links the idea to Cardano’s Midnight.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has voiced concerns about persistent division among major blockchain platforms. While Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano remain key networks in decentralized technology, Hoskinson emphasized the need for collaboration to support broader growth, not isolated dominance.
Responding to a recent discussion initiated by podcast host Kevin W. Smith, Hoskinson reacted to comments made by Gavin Wood. Wood co-founded Ethereum and also created Polkadot and Kusama. The conversation centered around growing tension between blockchain ecosystems and whether cooperation could replace rivalry.
Wood stated, “This is very, very hard. We have turned what should be a technical solution into like a football league.” He explained that the loyalty many users and developers feel toward a specific protocol often obstructs meaningful cooperation. Wood added that founders are under pressure to meet the expectations of their communities, making collaboration appear as a weakness.
Sounds like the whole cooperative economics concept that Midnight is pushing. https://t.co/zb08XgdATy
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) June 5, 2025
Technical Solutions vs. Competitive Culture
Wood argued that despite the competitive atmosphere, technical solutions exist. He proposed decoupling tokens from networks or creating a shared ecosystem where all tokens are usable across platforms without losing their unique characteristics. Wood said:
So the tokens retain their individual identity, potentially even some of their tokenomics, yet they are, to a large extent, fungible at a floating market rate,
He drew a comparison to national currencies, where people carry multiple currencies and use whichever one fits the context. According to Wood, similar flexibility in blockchain could encourage stronger integration across platforms.
Before fully adopting this concept, Wood stressed the need for a plan that ensures Layer 1 networks—base chains like Ethereum or Cardano—could cooperate rather than become permanent rivals. He warned that without a plan, “they would just become inevitable competitors. Different football teams.”
Cardano’s Privacy Project and Cooperative Focus
Hoskinson supported Wood’s idea, saying it aligns with Cardano’s approach. “Sounds like the whole cooperative economics concept that Midnight is pushing,” he said. Midnight is Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain project designed to promote open cooperation between different blockchains.
Midnight aims to eliminate echo chambers and enable platforms to build shared tools. Hoskinson believes cooperation can scale faster and more securely when built on common technical foundations and mutual interests, rather than loyalty to a specific token.
In a separate remark, Hoskinson suggested that Brave browser could use Midnight for privacy-enhancing features. He mentioned Brave Ads and Brave VPN as specific tools that could benefit from integrating with Midnight to improve crypto rewards using Basic Attention Token (BAT).
