One of crypto’s most outspoken founders has launched an attack on Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, accusing the company of shaping the CLARITY Act in ways that benefit Ripple while placing devastating burdens on every other blockchain project in the industry.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, did not hold back.
The Core Accusation
Hoskinson’s central argument is that the current version of the CLARITY Act, as shaped by Ripple’s influence, would make every new blockchain project a security by default while carving out a significant exemption for Ripple and XRP. In his view, this is not a coincidence. It is a calculated move by a well-funded company to lock in its own position while pulling up the ladder behind it.
“They’re trying to pass a bill that hurts the entire ecosystem while they get protected,” he said.
He also raised serious concerns about liability for open-source developers, arguing that the current language in the bill could expose independent developers to unlimited legal liability simply for building on a blockchain. For a space that runs largely on open-source code, that would be a potentially industry-ending provision.
The Premine Argument
Hoskinson went further, pointing to Ripple’s token distribution as evidence that the company has never needed the industry’s help or solidarity. He noted that Ripple gave itself what he described as a massive premine worth tens of billions of dollars at current valuations, and therefore had more than enough resources to fight the SEC on its own without asking for community support.
“I didn’t give myself 70% of the ADA supply,” he said pointedly, drawing a direct contrast with his own approach to Cardano’s token distribution.
His argument was that Ripple fought the SEC for its own commercial interests, not for the broader good of the crypto industry, and that the XRP community’s belief that Hoskinson should have supported them financially misunderstands both the situation and who actually needed help.
The CLARITY Act and What Is at Stake
Hoskinson’s frustration with the CLARITY Act goes beyond Ripple specifically. He argued that once legislation like this gets enshrined into law it becomes nearly impossible to change, pointing to the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 as a 93-year-old example of how financial regulation tends to calcify.
He said he had proposed a solution: creating a new definition of a digital security that would include blockchain-based disclosure, 24/7 liquidity and the ability to trade on exchanges, which would have addressed the stablecoin yield debate and brought all sides including banks to the table. That proposal, he says, was ignored.
His warning is stark. Pass a flawed bill now and it will be weaponised within two or three years by whoever holds political power at that point.
The Community Reaction
Predictably, the XRP community pushed back hard. Supporters accused Hoskinson of attacking Ripple out of competitive jealousy, arguing that he only raises these concerns because Cardano stands to lose ground if XRP and Ripple gain further regulatory legitimacy.
Hoskinson addressed this directly, saying the inability to separate the argument from the person making it is itself part of the problem. He pointed to years of social media consumption and what he called poor epistemic hygiene as reasons why nuanced conversations about policy have become almost impossible in the crypto space.
The question the industry now has to answer before May is simple: who exactly is the CLARITY Act being written for?
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