Standing at the end of Cardano’s original roadmap and peering ahead

The latest 90 minute whiteboard video in a 5 minute read!

In 2017, Charles Hoskinson stood at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and recorded a whiteboard video outlining his vision for Cardano. At the beginning of 2025, Cardano reached the final milestone of that original roadmap. In Argentina at the end of 2024, with that “final” milestone in sight, Charles again uncapped a marker and laid out a new vision for the next leg of the Cardano journey. The video is posted on the IOG YouTube page, but for those who don’t want to watch the full 90 minute show, we’ve distilled the main elements here – along with a few of Charles’ always quotable quotes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s4OauGIzNg

Where we’ve been

Cardano has built a blockchain ecosystem rooted in formal methods, peer-reviewed research, and a commitment to decentralization.

“We wanted to change the economic, political, and social systems of the world.” Since its launch, Cardano has introduced a native asset framework (Mary Hard Fork), smart contracts (Alonzo), and the world’s largest decentralized governance system through Project Catalyst. With over 8 million assets issued and thousands of dApps, Cardano has laid the groundwork for a scalable and decentralized financial system.“

A fundamental part of Cardano’s evolution has been governance. Catalyst has funded over 1,900 projects, and after extensive global workshops, CIP-1694 was created, defining Cardano’s on-chain governance system.

“This is a government by and for the people.”

With 1.4 million delegated wallets and a [recent] constitutional convention, Cardano is preparing for on-chain governance at a scale never before seen in blockchain.

The Challenges Ahead: Scaling, Trust, and the Future of Blockchain

Despite Cardano’s progress, we are at a crossroads. The world is becoming dominated by AI, suffering from institutional distrust, and experiencing economic instability. Cardano’s role is not just about improving blockchain—it’s about building a new foundation for a failing system.

“The way our money system works is there are short-term political advantages to being fiscally insolvent that eventually collapse the nation’s money… nobody trusts the global order… AI is messing with things, and there’s a massive wealth transfer from the small to the large because of exponential technologies where the means of production are controlled by smaller and smaller groups of people. This is a recipe for a very sick world. The world is sick as of 2030. Paradoxically, however, we’ll never have more knowledge, more raw capability, and more innovation potential. So while the world is sick, our ability to actually fix it has never been better, because the same exponential technologies that allow the world to descend into this madness are the same exponential technologies that could, in a different configuration, be used to create abundance for everybody.”

Here are the key issues Cardano must tackle:

  • Scalability: No blockchain today can support billions of users without sacrificing decentralization.
  • Affordability: Running a decentralized system must be cost-effective for all participants.
  • Usability: Blockchain is still too difficult for the average person to use.
  • Key Features Missing: Privacy, identity solutions, and regulatory automation are not yet integrated.
  • Centralization Pressures: The biggest challenge is that “the easy way to scale is to centralize.”

”The easy way to scale is to centralize. But if you do that, you’ve already lost.”

The challenge is clear—scaling blockchain without surrendering decentralization is the industry’s greatest test. Cardano’s roadmap must find the balance between security, decentralization, and real-world usability.

The Roadmap: Scaling, Privacy, and Infrastructure

Cardano’s answer to these challenges is a comprehensive scalability and governance strategy, using these innovations:

  • Ouroboros Leios: Multi-threaded block production for unparalleled efficiency.
  • Hydra: Layer 2 scaling, allowing dApps and games to run millions of transactions.
  • Rollups & Partner Chains: Custom blockchains integrated into Cardano.

But there is still a missing piece:

“We keep telling you we’re going to change the world: we’re going to change the economic and political and social systems of the world. [But] what the blockchain people don’t tell you is that the world has a public side and a private side. And in that private side in the world – blockchains don’t do so well! They’re designed to be open, transparent, auditable, immutable systems. [Imagine] everybody gets to see your Amazon shopping cart… Everybody gets to see your Google search history…everybody gets to see your Google Maps history… wait a minute! That’s probably not the best thing, right? So privacy is a human right and privacy is a requirement for business to work.”

Midnight (Launching 2025) will introduce private smart contracts and selective disclosure, allowing businesses to operate securely while still benefiting from blockchain’s transparency.

The Vision for 2030: A Blockchain-Powered Nation-State?

Cardano’s long-term vision goes beyond scaling and privacy—it is about powering entire nation-states on decentralized infrastructure.

“I believe we can run a nation-state on Cardano by 2030. And not a small one.” With governments around the world losing trust, Cardano aims to become the backbone of future governance, financial systems, and identity solutions. Hoskinson sees one or more countries integrating blockchain into their governance within the next five years.“

  • Voting systems secured on-chain.
  • Identity management decentralized.
  • Financial systems running without central bank corruption.

If Cardano succeeds, it could redefine governance in a way not seen since the rise of constitutional democracies.

“The world needs rules that people can trust. And blockchains make it so trust is no longer a question.” For Cardano to achieve this, it must continue its decentralization push. Governance will play a major role, as Cardano’s constitution will define how upgrades, treasury funds, and leadership changes are handled democratically.

The Exciting Conclusion

“We don’t have to be timid. We can change the world.”

With $1.5 billion Ada in its on-chain treasury and a growing network of developers, scientists, and policymakers, Cardano is entering its most critical phase. By embracing decentralized governance, expanding scalability, and ensuring privacy, Cardano aims to be the platform that replaces failing traditional institutions with a decentralized global infrastructure.

The question is no longer “if” blockchain will change the world—it’s whether Cardano will lead the way.

Get more articles like this in your inbox

Was the article useful?

Or leave comment

No comments yet…

close

Playlist

  • EP2: epoch_length

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    3m 24s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP1: 'd' parameter

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    4m 3s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP3: key_deposit

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    3m 48s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP4: epoch_no

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    2m 16s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP5: max_block_size

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    3m 14s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP6: pool_deposit

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    3m 19s
    Darlington Kofa
  • EP7: max_tx_size

    Authored by: Darlington Kofa

    4m 59s
    Darlington Kofa
0:00
/
~0:00