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- EMURGO says that Cardano is at an inflection point as it pivots from focusing solely on infrastructure to building around people and experiences.
- Charles Hoskinson wants the Treasury to create a new investment index that buys up to 30% of tokens from select projects, as most dApps struggle to generate revenue.
The Cardano ecosystem has spent too much of its time, effort and resources building infrastructure and not enough on creating utility and improving the user experience, says Charles Hoskinson. This must change if the network is to compete with its peers, he believes.
In his latest live-streamed update, Hoskinson explained that Cardano has three important layers: infrastructure, utility and experience. However, it has dedicated all its resources to infrastructure at the expense of the other two.
He stated:
This is the last year where we have expensive infrastructure. Moving forward, most of the projects are going to work very well, but they are not going to be the majority of the Cardano budget. The majority has to be heavy investment in utility and experiences.
EMURGO, the venture and investment entity of the Cardano ecosystem, reiterated this view, stating that Hoskinson was right to call for a rebalance. EMURGO believes that the network is “at an inflection point” and it must pivot away from infrastructure to survive in the long term. The team added:
Infrastructure alone does not build ecosystems. Presence does. People do. Experiences do. The experiences layer, as Charles described, the onboarding, the unified brand presence, the developer engagement, these are not nice-to-haves. They are the growth engine, and they require the same level of strategic commitment as any infrastructure investment.
EMURGO says it has joined hands with the Cardano Foundation to execute a Unified Global Events Marketing Strategy to put the network in the right rooms, with the right people. This is why the network has been more active at events like Token 2049 and Consensus HK, where Hoskinson delivered a keynote address announcing the Midnight mainnet would launch this month.
The Cardano ecosystem is at an inflection point.
And EMURGO, as part of the Pentad, is ready for it.The conversation around Cardano funding has been dominated by infrastructure. @IOHK_Charles is right to call for a rebalance.
Infrastructure alone does not build ecosystems.… https://t.co/9UwgowAUXy
— EMURGO (@emurgo_io) March 11, 2026
Hoskinson: Cardano dApps Are Struggling
Hoskinson acknowledged that the Cardano ecosystem has been struggling across all major metrics, from TVL to monthly active users.
“There are a lot of dApps and DeFi on Cardano that are losing money. They do not have a lot of users or TVL. They are not getting a lot of transactions. This is not a blame game, it’s an objective, measurable reality,” he stated.
Cardano Funding 2026 https://t.co/vwHRkktPtp
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 10, 2026
One of the solutions is a pivot in the network’s funding strategy from ‘giving free money’ to making strategic investments. Hoskinson proposed that the Treasury should invest in projects and receive up to 30% of their token supply, which would form an index. The investment would come with conditions such as oversight, reduced operating costs and layoffs, revenue sharing and strategic alignment. If the dApps invested in expand and their tokens become more valuable, the Treasury would sell the tokens and buy ADA.
Hoskinson also wants Cardano to start paying its content creators and influencers. He claimed that other networks like Solana, Ethereum and Bitcoin pay for digital promotion, and so should Cardano. This is why the network is considered to be “the uncool chain, a ghost chain, a dead project.”
