Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson confirmed that the van Rossem hard fork is scheduled for next month.
He also talked about the current state of the market, recent integrations such as LayerZero and USDCx, and how Cardano is stacking up against other networks.

In his latest update from “warm sunny Colorado,” Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson discussed the current state of the crypto market and its ongoing struggle against the powers that be, while also confirming that the network’s scheduled hard fork is set for next month.

On the hard fork, Hoskinson only mentioned it in passing, stating:

“Cardano hard fork is happening I believe next month. But you know the community is kind of working its way through that and getting these things done.”

The only major upgrade on the cards for Cardano is Protocol Version 11, which the community voted to name the van Rossem Hard Fork after Max van Rossem, one of the most renowned members of Cardano who died last October.

van Rossem is an intra-era hard fork, meaning that while it will change the protocol rules, it will not introduce a new ledger like Shelley or Alonzo. Since it will be activated through the Hard Fork Combinator, it will not split the chain. Among the changes van Rossem brings will be improvements to Plutus, Cardano’s smart contract platform, clean up ledger rules, and update node performance.

Breakout Year Ahead for Cardano, Says Hoskinson

While the hard fork was mentioned in passing, Hoskinson dedicated a sizable portion of the video to recapping Cardano’s big moves in recent months and how they will shape a transformational year ahead for the network.

Here’s my speech today https://t.co/PxDvzLdOJt

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) February 19, 2026

The biggest development has been with the Midnight Network. As CNF reported, in his speech at the Consensus conference in Hong Kong, Hoskinson revealed that the Midnight mainnet would be going live before the end of March. At the event, he also revealed that Cardano was integrating LayerZero, one of the most popular interoperability networks. This allows it to connect to over 100 blockchains and tap into $80 billion in omnichain assets.

He also mentioned the integration of Pyth oracles and USDCx stablecoin as major milestones for the network.

Beyond Cardano, Hoskinson talked about the ongoing attempts by some factions to crack down on decentralization in crypto. They plan to ban non-custodial wallets so that all crypto volume runs on permissioned federated systems owned by the giant financial systems.

He noted:

“Unfortunately, they are making meaningful and sustained progress. If you look at the latest drafts of the CLARITY Act and the launch of all these federated networks which are VC darlings…there is no real intention to ever decentralize these.”

Hoskinson has been criticizing the CLARITY Act for some time now. Last month, he called out Ripple CEO Brad Gardlinghouse for supporting the bill, describing it as siding with the same enemy that almost ran Ripple out of business, as we reported.

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Filed under: Bitcoin - @ February 22, 2026 10:05 am