Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said he wasn’t aware that US President Donald Trump would include the network’s native token, ADA, in his proposed crypto reserve until the day it was announced.
“We knew nothing about ADA being selected for the reserve. It was news to me,” Hoskinson said in a video on March 5. He added that he woke up on March 2 to 150 messages of congratulations but had “no idea what the heck was going on.”
“We never even knew about it, and nobody even talked to us about it,” he added, before saying that he tried hard to have these conversations before being told, “We’ll call you back” or “We’ll figure it out.”
Donald Trump proposed a US crypto reserve on March 2, stating that it would “obviously” contain Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), but caused a reaction from some in the industry for also including XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA).
ADA skyrocketed 76% in a few hours following the announcement, jumping from $0.647 to top out at $1.14 before dumping 30% over the following day.
The move caused quite a stir among some crypto executives and analysts, who derided the proposal for its inclusion of assets other than Bitcoin.
Hoskinson hasn’t received invite to crypto summit
Hoskinson also spoke about the White House crypto roundtable on March 7, claiming that neither he nor any Cardano representatives had received an invitation so far this week.
“I’m going to operate under the assumption that I have not been invited to go to this gathering,” he said before adding, “I don’t imagine much policy work will be done.”
He added that there is a lot of policy work and agencies to pass through before any decisions can be made or legislation can be passed, so while these summits are “important because they put a spotlight on the topic, real work does require many people from across the spectrum” to work together to get things done.
“It’s not helpful as an industry, though, to treat all this as some sort of popularity contest,” he said before adding:
“If you believe for a moment that your cryptocurrency is going to do well because somebody went to a ‘vanity fair,’ you’re a fool.”
Related: Trump’s White House Crypto Summit: Confirmed attendees so far
Meanwhile, Fox Business correspondent Eleanor Terrett reported that Senator Tom Emmer and Representative Bryan Steil hosted a “Crypto Power Lunch” to discuss “digital asset policy initiatives and legislation” on March 5.
Attendees included representatives from crypto trade organizations, including the Digital Chamber and Blockchain Association, in addition to corporate representatives from Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, Consensys and Anchorage Digital, she said.
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