Cardano’s $600 Million Reckoning: IOG Audit Looms in August as Hoskinson Fires Back

Cardano braces for impact as founder Charles Hoskinson confirms a make-or-break $600 million audit of IOG—slated for August amid mounting scrutiny.

The blockchain's 'peer-reviewed' armor gets stress-tested

Hoskinson's defiant stance clashes with market jitters as ADA investors demand transparency—or at least someone to blame when the auditors start picking through the books like vultures at a carcass.

Meanwhile, Wall Street still can't decide if crypto audits are due diligence or performance art.

Why The Cardano Audit Is Needed

The audit is the centerpiece of Hoskinson’s effort to rebut accusations that IOG quietly commandeered roughly $600 million worth of ADA during the 2021 Allegra hard fork. The charge—first amplified in May by NFT artist Masato Alexander—claims Hoskinson used a “genesis key” to rewrite the ledger and MOVE 318‑350 million unclaimed tokens into company‑controlled wallets.

Hoskinson has repeatedly rejected the story as a “lie,” insisting most of the disputed coins had already been claimed by their original buyers and that the remainder “was donated to Intersect” after a seven‑year dormancy period. “No matter how many times people lie, they cannot change reality,” he wrote on 6 May.

The episode escalated after social‑media headlines in late May suggested a $600 million “theft.” “I’m absolutely disgusted… The headlines I’ve seen are beyond damaging; they will require months if not years of work and millions of dollars to undo post‑audit,” Hoskinson posted on 20 May, pledging to pay for an independent review and to publish it in full.

IOG’s chief legal and policy officer Joel Telpner confirmed progress on the investigation in a parallel X update: “We are making good progress on the investigative and audit report that we promised to deliver. The law firm and audit firm are close to completing their work and we are hoping the report will be ready to release by the middle of August. I’ll continue to keep you updated.”

Hoskinson also signaled a legal counter‑offensive, telling followers he will meet “with the defamation law firm next week to discuss options and strategy,” a move he says is aimed at recovering what he characterizes as “hundreds of millions of dollars of brand damage” to Cardano.

The forthcoming report will be aired live: Hoskinson intends to read the entire document in a livestream and to host the PDF—along with “other historical artifacts from the sale”—on a dedicated website.

Market reaction has been restrained so far. ADA changed hands at roughly $0.84 when the latest update hit social media—flat on the day but still up 17 percent on the week.

At press time, Cardano traded at $0.889.