Hoskinson: AI Has Made Developer Counts a Useless Growth Metric

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rendered developer counts useless as a growth metric, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. For years, blockchains have relied on that number to demonstrate expansion.

Hoskinson came to the defense of Midnight, a privacy-focused blockchain built on Cardano, during a Sunday broadcast. The Midnight Foundation has trimmed the group responsible for recruiting outside developers and turned its attention to individuals Hoskinson refers to as builders.

Why Developer Counts Are No Longer Reliable

Over the past ten years, blockchain projects measured their progress by the number of engineers contributing code. Since human coders were in short supply, that count carried weight.

AI coding tools have eliminated that shortage, Hoskinson argues. Now anyone can produce functional software without actually comprehending it.

"You can have people who have no technical knowledge and no experience use these tools to look like a developer. So it’s no longer a scarce and finite resource," Hoskinson said during a Sunday broadcast.

Verification has become the practical issue. Code bounties and hackathons now allow participants to present AI-generated content as their own.

Teams subsequently waste time investigating who wrote the code instead of drawing in projects. Hoskinson prefers ventures that have paying customers and external investors.

In June, BeInCrypto reported that Hoskinson was restructuring Midnight City's development approach to focus on AI agents.

Midnight Foundation Continues to Fund the Metric It Disavows

This contradiction exists within Hoskinson's own ecosystem. The Midnight Foundation is currently hosting three hackathons offering a total of $26,500 in prizes. One competition in Korea began on September 1.

These events reward the code that Hoskinson argues can no longer be reliably verified. He acknowledged the inconsistency, noting that his perspective differs from the foundation's.

Hoskinson has previously distanced himself from Cardano entities, stepping back from promoting ADA in June.

Cardano (ADA) is currently trading around $0.21, a 0.8% increase in the last day, and has not reacted to the strategic change. The coming six months will determine if new builders come in faster than developers depart.