Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson (찰스 호스킨슨) publicly pushed back against controversy over the Stellar network that flared after the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Stellar announced a partnership, defending Stellar as legitimate technology.

According to blockchain media outlet The Crypto Basic on May 28 local time, Hoskinson said, "Stellar is perfectly legitimate technology," and questioned criticism directed at the network.

The controversy began after DTCC and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) said they would support tokenisation of traditional financial assets on the Stellar network. Under the plan, tokenisation of assets held in custody by DTCC is expected to become possible on Stellar by the first half of 2027. DTCC explained the collaboration was meant to strengthen its multichain strategy and boost interoperability between traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure.

After the announcement, the cryptocurrency and traditional finance industries responded positively, but criticism followed that took issue with Stellar’s blockchain structure. Crypto commentator Omid Malekan said, "Stellar is not a legitimate blockchain." He argued Stellar lacks economic security and that the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) depends on relationships among trusted validators.

Stellar protocol developer Garand Tyson also responded. He said Stellar validators are publicly known, cannot extract maximal extractable value (MEV), cannot arbitrarily manipulate transaction ordering, and rely on community trust rather than token-based incentives. In other words, he pushed back by saying Stellar’s structural characteristics are a design difference, not a weakness.

Hoskinson defended Stellar on the same point. He said not all blockchain systems must follow the same model to be recognised as valid or useful. He said technical legitimacy cannot be denied simply because a network adopts a consensus structure different from proof of work (PoW) or proof of stake (PoS).

Hoskinson’s friendly relationship with Stellar is not new. He said he communicated directly with Jed McCaleb in 2024 and previously spoke positively about the Stellar team. Earlier, in 2017, he publicly said he hoped for success of the Stellar ecosystem and described the Stellar white paper as interesting and worth reading.

Market interest in Stellar has also continued. Hoskinson said he congratulated Stellar’s XLM and Hedera (HBAR) after they rose sharply in July 2025. At the time, XLM surged more than 100% in a matter of weeks to as high as $0.5194, and Hoskinson saw it as evidence the two ecosystems had endured a difficult market cycle and kept growing.

The controversy has drawn attention as debate spread into arguments over technical structure and security models in deciding which blockchain tokenisation of traditional financial assets will be carried out on. Hoskinson’s remarks again highlighted the view that blockchain validity cannot be judged only by a single consensus model.

Did Stellar kill this guy's dog? It's prefectly legitimate technology