Congratulations Iagon

Hi, this is Charles Hoskinson broadcasting live from warm, sunny Colorado. Always warm, always sunny, sometimes Colorado. I wanted to share a tweet that I just saw and give some context behind this. It's actually an incredibly cool thing. So, it's from our good friend Dr.

Nav. He’s the leader of IGON, which is one of the largest and most prominent Cardano applications. They’re doing some super cool stuff and have the potential to be one of the most interesting partner chains long-term, doing some really interesting things for the industry as a whole. Our problems are their problems, their problems are our problems, and everybody is working together. This tweet shows that they’ve done something very significant and meaningful to every single person in the Cardano ecosystem.

So, I’d like to read it out. He says, "I’ve been working with Fireblocks integration for a few months now, and I want to share why Fireblocks engagement is a major milestone for Cardano and every project issuing CNTs. We have now signed and kicked off integration with Fireblocks to deliver a full Cardano stack for their institutional clients. Fireblocks is building dedicated SDK and tooling around Cardano and CNTs, including support for CNT transfers, balance and history queries, ADA staking and governance, and a unified SDK with a simple interface for customers, along with a webhook capability so exchanges and institutions can properly monitor ADA and CNT activity. On top of that, Fireblocks will be using IGON's insights API.

That means when a Fireblocks client wants to run Cardano infrastructure or query the Cardano blockchain, they will be able to do so using enterprise-grade nodes and analytics powered by IGON in the background. Fireblocks today is one of the core infrastructure providers for the institutional side of this industry. Their platform is used by over 2,000 organizations, including names like Revolut and BNY Mellon, and is connected to major trading venues and exchanges such as the Coinbase International Exchange, Crypto.com, and Binance US, among others. Many banks, fintechs, brokers, custodians, funds, and treasuries that touch digital assets rely on Fireblocks as their operational backbone.

This integration is about making Cardano and CNTs operationally straightforward for serious institutions and about placing IGON's compute and insight capabilities within that flow. It’s a long-term infrastructure play, and I’m confident it will materially change how Cardano is accessed. Special thanks to Michael, the global head of technical integrations at the Cardano Foundation, for helping on the technical side; it would not be possible without you. Fred did mention this to us when we were having that meeting at Thanksgiving, that this was one of the things that was in the works. He also posted here that IGON will be fronting the bill.

We’ll ask for reimbursements through the Pentad integration proposal. This is an example of when you create an executive function, other people start adding into it, and they all start contributing to the mission and getting things done. We had engaged Fireblocks about nine to twelve months ago through the Midnight Foundation when we were talking to Copper and Bitco and others about CNT support because this was a big component of exchange listings, and they were a bit lukewarm. I think they’ve started warming up quite a bit. It’s really cool to see that the IGON folks were able to get it over the line and finish, getting these guys to a point where they said, "All right, let’s do it for Cardano.

" We always knew there was an inevitability behind it, but somebody had to be the one to actually kick down the door and make it happen. Sometimes you just have to have that persistence and be willing to show up. Some of these organizations are easy to work with, and others take a little convincing to get them where they need to be. We’re incredibly proud, and we think this is a huge win for the Cardano ecosystem. It’s a huge win also for the IGON team as a whole because not only is that integration there, but there is a consumer and provider with that integration.

When an integration happens, one of the number one things the integration provider is curious about is who’s going to consume it and whether we will make money outside of just offering this service. Exchanges like Crypto.com or others typically don’t self-custody. They actually use these types of providers to hold on to their clients' assets for security purposes. So, if you want to get listed on the exchange, you actually need the custodian to do that, which is why we pushed so hard for Copper, among others, because it was necessary for some of our listing plans with Midnight.

You’ll notice that we’re not listed on Crypto.com because we actually need Fireblocks for that. So now that opens up that possibility for everybody else. The point of the Pentad wasn’t just about the core five; it’s about bringing everybody together. When people are able to negotiate and do things like this, it’s important that they be reimbursed for their time and acknowledged for the great work they’ve done for the community as a whole.

I didn’t expect this announcement today; I expected it to come a little later, and we’re incredibly glad that it got over the line. There’s a lot to do. There’s obviously a lot of integrations, audit work, and other things. At least on the IoG side, I can promise the IGON team that if they need any help or assistance, we’re here. They’re already working with the Cardano Foundation’s integration team, which is good, too.

They’re just as competent and capable, if not more so, than the people on our side. Hopefully, we can get this into the calendar and figure out when it’s going to hit and how to make sure that Fireblocks gets some consumption and demand. There are a lot more integrations to announce and efforts to happen, but I suspect that before it’s all said and done, this whole Pentad proposal is going to be pushing forward probably a dozen or so more. When you look at the totality of all of it, we’ll see how many can actually be closed and negotiated with some names that people are very excited about. I was expecting just to talk about Pith today, but to be able to talk about Fireblocks today is a testimony to the decentralization and the quality of the community as a whole that we have, and the quality of some of the projects in this ecosystem.

As a reward to them as community members, show some love, buy a Cyclone, maybe take a slight position in ICON, become an ambassador of their stuff, join their social channels, give them a and subscribe. They did real good today. This was a huge accomplishment. It’s a massive step forward for Cardano as a whole, and it really showcases that we’re serious in 2026. This is our year.

We got Hydra waking up, we got linear layers being deployed in the system, we got StarStream, and we have an incredible DeFi experience. Midnight is already live, and all the capabilities are turning on for the Cardano DAPs, allowing for a huge leap in privacy. We got Bitcoin DeFi. This is our year to get billions in TVL, millions of new users, and to make crypto simple, easy, and effective for the countless millions that are coming in. This is our year to grow.

Governance is here. We’re able to make big decisions, small decisions, and recover from governance changes. We have vibrant, strong, real-world organizations like Intersect. This is awesome stuff. It’s working.

We had to go through 2025 to earn the right to have a 2026. Thanks all for listening, and congratulations to this team. Again, and subscribe to all their stuff, go get yourself some hardware thingies, start mining, and give some love to that protocol. Good work is good work. These are very tough negotiations with tough counterparties.

This was one that kind of slipped through that we wanted to get, and they were real slippery and tough. I’m glad that the IGON guys were able to land it and get it done. They did something we couldn’t do, and that’s pretty cool when you think about it. Overall, the rest are in hand, and we’re feeling pretty good about it and pretty excited. We’re already getting a meeting set up with J and Jack to talk to Dr.

Nav, and we can make sure that they’re part of the bigger family. There are going to be a few other stragglers here and there that are also negotiating various things, small and large, or trying to close some bigger deals. This is going to create a collaborative model where people know where to go and how to interact to create collective bargaining and strengthen numbers, and also figure out how we create a whole end-to-end launch plan. Pith was just announced today, but it’s not good enough just to have Pith. We have to do a Pithathon.

We actually have to do a hackathon. Santiago is probably going to take that in March, where we get Cardano DAPs to build something with Pith on the Cardano network and show some demand and use cases for them to take a look at. This is a sign of good faith to the providers to show that the Cardano ecosystem wants to use their things, will consume their things, and create demand for the integrations that come in. That’s equally important to what’s happening here with getting it onto the chain. You can’t just have it on the chain; you have to have use and utility with it.

Thank you, team, each and every person from the top all the way to the bottom. You deserve the day. This is your day. We’ll call it that. Thanks, guys.