Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson made striking statements about the cryptocurrency markets over the next year and his predictions for 2026 in an interview.
Hoskinson stated that the market has entered a new trend phase and made a jaw-dropping price prediction for Bitcoin.
Hoskinson predicts that Bitcoin could reach $250,000 by 2026, noting that institutional demand remains very strong. He sees the fact that giants like Morgan Stanley have started recommending crypto positions to their private asset advisors as one of the biggest triggers for this rise.
According to Hoskinson, the development of custody-free lending protocols is critical for this increase in Bitcoin’s value to spill over into altcoins.
Hoskinson stated that each generation in the crypto world brings a new technological leap. Following the eras of smart contracts and scalability, he argued that the main theme of the next year will be “privacy.” However, he clarified that this privacy will not be a completely dark structure, but rather “rational privacy,” where the user can choose what and whom they share.
In this context, Hoskinson, who introduced the new fourth-generation blockchain project Midnight, said that this network will function as a “privacy API” not only for Cardano but also for other networks such as Ethereum and Solana.
Hoskinson, evaluating the year 2025, stated that the excitement following Trump’s election was hampered by certain market anomalies. He argued that the launch of projects like “Trumpcoin” and “World Liberty Financial” specifically undermined individual interest in cryptocurrencies by drawing them into a partisan arena of debate.
Touching upon Cardano’s future, the founder stated that the network has now gone beyond being just a Layer-1 platform. Hoskinson explained that they will bring Cardano’s stability to other chains with the “Partner Chain” concept, and predicted that the Midnight project will provide a massive influx of data and users for the Cardano ecosystem.
He also argued that Cardano is one of the most stable networks, having been up and running uninterrupted (24/7) for 8 years.
Hoskinson, also evaluating the competitors, stated that Solana has higher growth potential in the short term due to its agility, but Ethereum’s long-term vision of “verifiable computing” is correct. However, he said that both networks are stuck in their own paradigms and that the future lies in “proof-based” systems.
