SBI Holdings’ partnership with Solana has stirred a sharp backlash from parts of the Cardano community. For many ADA holders, the issue goes well beyond a single business deal. The report says about 90% of Cardano’s original capital came from Japanese investors, making Japan a core part of the network’s early identity. Against that backdrop, SBI choosing Solana was seen by some supporters as a missed opening for Cardano.
ADA holders question why Cardano did not secure a similar Japan deal
SBI is a major financial group in Japan with exposure to banking, securities, and digital assets. Its move toward Solana quickly drew criticism on X, where some community members described the development as a “crushing defeat” and asked why Cardano-linked organizations had failed to land a comparable agreement. The criticism soon centered on Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson and Input Output Global, or IOG.
The reaction reflected more than disappointment over one partnership. It also exposed frustration over whether Cardano has made full use of its long-standing connection to Japan. For some holders and developers, SBI’s decision suggested that Cardano had fallen short in business outreach and coordination. The tone online was blunt.
Hoskinson says Cardano partnerships are not his personal mandate
Hoskinson pushed back hard on claims that he should be held personally responsible for the outcome. He said the community was showing “learned helplessness” and argued that the age of commercial deals being arranged by a single office was over. In his view, neither he nor IOG has exclusive authority to negotiate commercial partnerships on behalf of Cardano.
He said major funding decisions and business proposals in Cardano must go through the Treasury system and receive approval through on-chain community voting. In one exchange on X, he challenged critics to identify the legally authorized entity behind such efforts, writing: “Who is the entity? Who has the funding and official mandate? Show me the vote or contract. You cannot randomly assign this.” His point was direct: without a formal mandate, vote, or contract, responsibility cannot simply be attached to him.
Governance design becomes the center of the dispute
Hoskinson’s answer was to shift the discussion toward Cardano’s decentralized structure. If supporters want deals comparable to the SBI-Solana partnership, he said, they need to organize and finance them through formal proposals rather than expect a central figure to do it. Under that model, responsibility for commercial growth is spread across token holders instead of resting with a founder or one company.
That stands in contrast with Solana’s more foundation-led approach, which the source describes as more centralized and more aggressive in brokering partnerships and integrations. Cardano’s direct-vote model for grants and funding can make its response slower when new openings appear. Some developers and investors dealing with lower liquidity read Hoskinson’s comments as an attempt to distance himself from operational responsibility. He framed it differently: Cardano’s direction now sits with its global token holders, through a system built to avoid single-point control.
The source also describes Input Output Global as the engineering and research company founded by Hoskinson, focused on Cardano and other blockchain projects. That close relationship does not, in his telling, mean IOG automatically holds sole authority over every external commercial negotiation.