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

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

Cardano Accusations Have ‘No Basis’

On Wednesday, the Cardano community celebrated after the third-party forensic review of the ADA voucher redemption program was published. The investigative report, conducted by law firm McDermott Will & Schulte and the audit firm BDO, determined that the allegations against Input Output Global (IOG) don’t have any foundation.

“After review of tens of thousands of documents, a forensic on-chain and traditional forensic analysis, and eighteen formal interviews of current employees, former employees, Voucher Holders, service providers, community members, and other third parties, the Investigation determined that each of the allegations related to the Topics of Investigation do not have any basis,” the report reads.

Public accusations included five main allegations, including that insiders stole or misused ADA that should have been allocated to voucher holders and that there were improper sale tactics related to the voucher program.

The claims also accused Cardano blockchain upgrades of being designed to make voucher redemption difficult, and deleted voucher holders’ “private keys” or assets. Lastly, the allegation that Cardano insiders had no legal right to send unredeemed ADA to CDH and decide how 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” during the Allegra hard fork in 2021 to take control of 318-350 million ADA, about 0.2 percent 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 sold were redeemed by their original buyers, while the remaining 0.2% were “returned to the TGE and donated to Intersect through the same process that funded the Cardano Foundation.”

The Review Findings

Based on the Investigation, McDermott Will & Schulte and BDO found that the sources of the public allegations against IOG and Charles Hoskinson didn’t originate from unredeemed voucher holders, and they “did not identify evidence indicating that Input Output or Sawyers turned away any potential Voucher Holder who possessed a valid Voucher.”

Additionally, they concluded that reasonable guardrails were implemented to prevent deceptive marketing and sales tactics, noting that the program was not designed to exploit the elderly.

The audit also revealed that 97.3% of all the vouchers, or 98.8% of the ADA allocated, were redeemed on-chain during the Byron era, and “substantial efforts were undertaken to cause Voucher Holders to redeem on-chain” at the time.

Meanwhile, the review highlighted that the voucher certificates contained redemption codes instead of “private keys,” refuting the accusation that these keys were later deleted. It also concluded that Cardano insiders did not misappropriate the staking rewards from the unredeemed ADA.

Time To Move On, Says Hoskinson

Hoskinson went on X Space to share the audit result, reading the announcement of IOG’s Chief Legal Officer & Chief Policy Officer, Joel Telpner, and the executive summary of the 128-page document.

Cardano’s founder said that it’s been a “deeply frustrating” process, noting that “It’s one thing to attack my intelligence, my physical appearance, my business acumen, my integrity. It’s another thing to accuse me of a crime.”

“This is over. And for the people who stirred this pot: do the right thing, and just apologize. Have some common fucking decency as a human being. Apologize. Let’s just all move on, say you were wrong. Have enough integrity to do that,” he asked.

Hoskinson shared his hope that most people will realize that the accusations were taken “too far,” concluding that “Hopefully, we can now just put this nightmare behind us.”