Cardano (ADA) Redemption Controversy Over? Hoskinson Shares IOG Audit Results

Following the controversial accusations, the outcomes of the third-party forensic overview of the Cardano (ADA) voucher redemption program have been made public. Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, says he’s now “ready for the apologies to return rolling in.”

Cardano Accusations Have ‘No Basis’

On Wednesday, the Cardano neighborhood celebrated after the third-party forensic overview of the ADA voucher redemption program was revealed. The investigative report, carried out by regulation agency McDermott Will & Schulte and the audit agency BDO, determined that the allegations in opposition to Input Output Global (IOG) don’t have any basis.

“After overview of tens of hundreds of paperwork, a forensic on-chain and conventional forensic evaluation, and eighteen formal interviews of present staff, former staff, Voucher Holders, service suppliers, neighborhood members, and different third events, the Investigation decided that every of the allegations associated to the Topics of Investigation should not have any foundation,” the report reads.

Public accusations included 5 primary allegations, together with that insiders stole or misused ADA that ought to have been allotted to voucher holders and that there have been improper sale ways associated to the voucher program.

The claims additionally accused Cardano blockchain upgrades of being designed to make voucher redemption tough, and deleted voucher holders’ “personal keys” or belongings. Lastly, the allegation that Cardano insiders had no authorized proper to ship unredeemed ADA to CDH and determine the best way to spend it.

The controversy emerged in May, when Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artist Masato Alexander alleged that Charles Hoskinson had “unilaterally used his genesis keys to REWRITE the Cardano ledger” throughout the Allegra onerous fork in 2021 to take management of 318-350 million ADA, about 0.2 % of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) allocation that remained unclaimed years after launch.

Hoskinson denied Alexander’s claims, arguing that 99.8% of the vouchers offered had been redeemed by their unique patrons, whereas the remaining 0.2% had been “returned to the TGE and donated to Intersect by means of the identical course of that funded the Cardano Foundation.”

The Review Findings

Based on the Investigation, McDermott Will & Schulte and BDO discovered that the sources of the general public allegations in opposition to IOG and Charles Hoskinson didn’t originate from unredeemed voucher holders, they usually “didn’t determine proof indicating that Input Output or Sawyers turned away any potential Voucher Holder who possessed a legitimate Voucher.”

Additionally, they concluded that cheap guardrails had been applied to stop misleading marketing and gross sales ways, noting that this system was not designed to take advantage of the aged.

The audit additionally revealed that 97.3% of all of the vouchers, or 98.8% of the ADA allotted, had been redeemed on-chain throughout the Byron period, and “substantial efforts had been undertaken to trigger Voucher Holders to redeem on-chain” on the time.

As of August 15, 2025, 99.2% of Vouchers consisting of 99.7% of all ada offered pursuant to the Voucher Program have been redeemed by means of the on-chain redemptions and Post-Sweep Redemption Project.

Meanwhile, the overview highlighted that the voucher certificates contained redemption codes as a substitute of “personal keys,” refuting the accusation that these keys had been later deleted. It additionally concluded that Cardano insiders didn’t misappropriate the staking rewards from the unredeemed ADA.

Time To Move On, Says Hoskinson

Hoskinson went on X Space to share the audit end result, studying the announcement of IOG’s Chief Legal Officer & Chief Policy Officer, Joel Telpner, and the chief abstract of the 128-page doc.

Cardano’s founder mentioned that it’s been a “deeply irritating” course of, noting that “It’s one factor to assault my intelligence, my bodily look, my enterprise acumen, my integrity. It’s one other factor to accuse me of against the law.”

“This is over. And for the individuals who stirred this pot: do the fitting factor, and simply apologize. Have some widespread fucking decency as a human being. Apologize. Let’s simply all transfer on, say you had been flawed. Have sufficient integrity to try this,” he asked.

Hoskinson shared his hope that most individuals will understand that the accusations had been taken “too far,” concluding that “Hopefully, we are able to now simply put this nightmare behind us.”