Hi, this is Charles Hoskinson broadcasting live from warm, sunny Colorado. Today is December 11th, 2025, and I have a wonderful update for everyone. We recently announced the Pentad structure and stated that we are on the march to secure all the critical integrations into Cardano. This includes oracles, bridges, stablecoins, analytics, and custodians. There are many players that need to be brought in to strengthen Cardano DeFi. Let's make Cardano DeFi great again!
Today, we have an exciting announcement—it's the appetizer announcement, just the start of many good things to come. Our good friends at Intersect announced this via tweet today. Let me share my screen.
Intersect has reported that one of the first concrete outcomes of the critical Cardano integrations workstream is now in place. The steering committee, representing Input Output, Cardano Foundation, MGO, Midnight Foundation, and Intersect, has approved the first major integration under this framework, bringing the Pith laser oracle to Cardano. The Pith Network provides low-latency, institutional-grade market data across thousands of price feeds spanning crypto, equities, FX, commodities, and ETFs. It is already used by hundreds of DeFi applications across more than 100 blockchains to power trading, lending, and risk management. This is one of the first integrations progressing under the critical integrations framework, with Intersect acting as the administrator. Delivery work has already begun, with deployment targeted for early 2026. Stay tuned for more information.
Now, let me tell you a bit about Pith. They may not be the flashiest, but Pith is one of the most advanced oracle solutions on the market. They are also among the fastest and are used by a wide range of applications. Their website showcases various publishers and the numerous feeds they provide across 113 blockchains. This effectively connects Cardano to the information networks of the entire cryptocurrency space. Notably, the United States Department of Commerce selected only two oracles to work with: Chainlink and Pith. Pith now has access to U.S. government data, which will soon benefit everyone in the Cardano ecosystem.
Oracles are the first part of major integrations. You need to communicate with other chains and systems and bring data from the outside world into Cardano. We attempted to build an indigenous oracle solution, but it didn't work out as well as we hoped. However, with Pith and others coming in, we are moving in a very positive direction. We have already started exploring the possibility of switching over Jed to Pith, and we encourage many Cardano DApps to consider the Pith solution. Pith has been incredibly easy to work with, and we appreciate their management and development team. We want to give them some business and consumption.
These oracles are extremely fast, with sub-second latency and incredibly accurate information. Bringing this in is crucial. By introducing several options, we can build up the chain infrastructure and negotiate from a position of strength. Pith is just the appetizer in the Cardano critical integrations. There are many more things to come, but we need to build it like a house—lay the foundation and basement first, then build our way up.
We wanted to ensure this announcement was made before the end of the year. I had planned to announce it in person at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, but unfortunately, I wasn't there. When I mentioned that we have ink on paper, this was one of the agreements that was signed. There is more to come as we are in active negotiations with many other companies. The great part about the Pentad structure is that we can all speak with one voice. We can load balance, and we've worked together. The foundation has been invaluable in these conversations, as have Intersect and the Midnight Foundation. They are all working as one team.
Once an integration is in place, we can also organize hackathons and say, "Hey, let's do a hackathon using their solution." We can approach each DApp builder and say, "Now you have better options in the ecosystem as a whole."
So, there you have it. Remember that the menu is quite vast: bridges, stablecoins, oracles, analytics, and custodial providers. This is the first menu of the 12 days of Christmas—one of the best oracles on the market, one of my favorites. It's a phenomenal product and one of the fastest-growing solutions around. The team is wonderful, great people, super easy to work with, and they have high integrity. Bigger announcements are on the way, and we are excited about that.
This is the Pentad in action, with everyone working in lockstep. We are proud of all the people involved. This is a little early Christmas present for the community. I know that some days trading is hard and the markets are tough, but Cardano is not an island anymore. We are preparing for the next few million users, multi-billion TVL, and a lot of MAUs and transactions. We now have many competitive differentiators. Bitcoin DeFi gives us access to new markets that others don't have, and Midnight provides a privacy layer that sets us apart from everyone else.
We have tier-one listings for CNTs, breaking that barrier means the rest can follow. This will drive arbitrage strategies between centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, bringing significant trading volume into the Cardano ecosystem as people arbitrage between our DEXs and CEXs to normalize prices. More transactions, more volume, more money for market makers, and more for your DeFi applications—we're just getting started.
OMR has some exciting developments with Bitcoin DeFi, and John O'Conor has incredible plans with Realy, which is likely to be the single biggest contributor to TVL growth on the Cardano blockchain next year. Midnight is just launching, and it's a lot of fun.
I wanted to make this quick announcement and thank Jack and everyone at Intersect. They've been great to work with and have been very efficient. It's not a bureaucracy when they can get things done quickly and systematically. We are proud of how much Intersect has grown throughout the year and the high quality of our collaborations with them.
To the Cardano community as a whole, the cavalry has come. Cardano is moving. Let's get this done. Thanks, everyone.
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