Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, forecasts a significant breakthrough in 2026 for Midnight, Leios, and the Cardano DeFi ecosystem. In a recent livestream, Hoskinson emphasized that Midnight, a privacy-focused sidechain, is set to excel with the NIGHT token launching on December 8 and a federated mainnet expected in Q1 2026. He also mentioned the Leios scalability upgrade and potential collaboration with Coinbase's Base network. Hoskinson anticipates substantial advancements in Cardano's DeFi sector by 2026, despite its current $178 million in total value locked (TVL), which lags behind Ethereum and Solana. Additionally, discussions are ongoing with Ripple to introduce RLUSD to the Cardano network.