Key takeout
- The joint audit confirms that 99.7% of the voucher ADA have been successfully redeemed, with no empirical claims of fraud.
- Unclaimed ADAs were assigned to Cardano Development Holdings for ecosystem grants and initiatives.
Input Output Global (IOG) publishes the results of a month-long investigation report and forensic audit of Cardano’s ADA voucher program. review, release On September 3rd, we found no evidence of fraud, but confirmed that almost all of our vouchers had been successfully redeemed.
128 pages, conducted by law firm McDermott, Will & Schulte and accounting firm BDO. investigation We investigated the sale of vouchers, the redemption process, blockchain upgrades, and the use of non-redemption ADAs.
Voucher sales were the original way to distribute Cardano’s native Crypto asset, ADA, through the provision of advance sales that funded the initial development of the network. The buyers received the voucher, were sold in tranches under strict KYC and audited for transparency. This could potentially be exchanged for an ADA after the network starts up.
An audit began in May 2025 after allegations surfaced that Cardano founders Charles Hoskinson and Yog had manipulated the blockchain during Allegra Hardfork in 2021, seizing about $600 million at ADA, founder of ADA founder Charles Hoskinson. Dismissed.
NFT artist Massart Alexander claimed that Hoskinson used “Genesisky” to divert 318 million ADAs from the reserve to other pools.
The claim has been denied
In this review, we concluded that all charges against the voucher program are unfounded. Investigators determined that the voucher program consists of safeguards to prevent deceptive sales tactics.
Contrary to allegations that it targeted older investors, the survey found that only about 6% of vouchers sold to individuals over the age of 65 were not relied on only 14 vouchers for this age group.
The investigation also addressed allegations that Cardano would upgrade the “private key” of deleted voucher holders. As mentioned earlier, the voucher certificate contained redemption codes rather than encryption keys, and these codes remained valid throughout the reimbursement process.
The misconceptions were attributed to inaccurate translations of Japanese terms such as “password,” which are misrepresented as “private keys” in online claims.
Repayment efforts
Data from the survey showed that 14,282 vouchers representing 25.9 billion ADA tokens were successfully redeemed through chain redemption and post-cleaning redemption projects.
By the end of Cardano’s Byron era, over 97% of the vouchers had already been redeemed in chains.
According to the survey results, as of August 15, 2025, 99.2% of all vouchers were redeemed and 99.7% of ADAs were sold through the program.
The remaining unclaimed ADA was legally transferred to the Cayman Foundation Cardano Development Holdings (CDH) in 2023 and assigned to Ecosystem Development, Continuity Agreements and Community Initiatives through the Crossroads, the Cardano governance group.
“Overall, the research demonstrated that input and Sawyer had acted enthusiastically and created structured safeguards to ensure manual reimbursement and responsible governance of funds,” the report concluded.
