Cardano Founder Slams Chainlink’s ’Absurd Price’ Quote - Here’s the Shocking Reason

Chainlink just handed Cardano a bill that made even crypto veterans blink. The oracle provider quoted what Charles Hoskinson himself called an 'absurd price' for integration—sparking immediate backlash from the ADA community.

Pricing Power Play

Oracle services don't come cheap, but Chainlink's quote crossed into territory that reeked of monopoly positioning. The number raised eyebrows across DeFi circles, highlighting the precarious power dynamic between infrastructure providers and blockchain networks.

Building In-House

Cardano's response? Skip the middleman entirely. The team is already accelerating development of their own oracle solution—because nothing inspires innovation like getting priced out of the market by a service that's supposed to be decentralized.

Finance's favorite lesson: even in 'decentralized' ecosystems, someone always holds the purse strings—and they're not afraid to squeeze.

Chainlink’s Absurd Fee

As one of the biggest blockchain ecosystems, Cardano’s inability to participate in the US government’s recent blockchain initiative to bring macroeconomic data onto the blockchain took many crypto participants by surprise. However, while speaking at a recent surprise AMA on his YouTube channel, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says the reason boils down to money. 

According to Hoskinson, the main reason was due to its pending partnership with Chainlink’s oracle integration, which is yet to be finalised because of the absurd fee charged by Chainlink. Hoskinson did not shy away from strong language: “They gave us an absurd number for integration. I said ‘f– it, we’ll handle it. We’ll figure it out,'” he said.

Despite the frustration, he tempered his critique with respect. He described Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov as “extremely smart” and “a very good businessman”, someone who “sees the future” and, in Hoskinson’s words, is “sitting on a golden egg”. 

Chainlink’s oracle solutions are very important for connecting smart contracts to real-world data. As such, Hoskinson’s metaphor acknowledges Chainlink’s powerful position in the blockchain ecosystem. 

How It Stalls Cardano’s DeFi Growth

Without a cost-effective oracle integration, Cardano’s decentralized finance landscape has struggled to keep pace with other blockchain ecosystems. To put this into perspective, Ethereum’s integration with Chainlink has allowed large inflows into its DeFi ecosystem, with about $13.4 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) added from between August 2 ($78.222 billion) and August 31 ($91.595 billion), according to data from DeFiLlama.

Meanwhile, Cardano’s TVL broke below $400 million in August, and daily active addresses have also fallen massively. At the time of writing, Cardano’s TVL is sitting at $367.91 million. The result is a disconnect between Cardano’s on-chain activity and ADA’s price action, which witnessed a steady increase in August alongside the rest of the crypto market.

Nonetheless, Hoskinson is still optimistic. Talks with Chainlink are ongoing, and he’s determined to find common ground with Chainlink. He also revealed discussions with the team behind the USD1 stablecoin and hinted at potential collaboration with Aave, which he described as part of a bundle. If USD1 (already launched on Ethereum, BNB, and Tron) comes to Cardano, it could become the ecosystem’s largest stablecoin. Combine that with oracle access and lending support from Chainlink, and cardano could strengthen its DeFi foundations significantly.

At the time of writing, Cardano is trading at $0.8307, up by 1.1% in the past 24 hours.