Cardano Founder Criticizes Ethereum’s Centralized Leadership Model

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has voiced strong opinions on Ethereum’s governance, likening it to a “dictatorship” under Vitalik Buterin, while praising Cardano’s new governance system as a solution to blockchain governance challenges.

Speaking at Token2049 in Singapore, Hoskinson explained that Cardano’s Voltaire-era governance overhaul prevents it from becoming either too centralized like Ethereum or too chaotic like Bitcoin.

Hoskinson Criticizes Ethereum and Vitalik

Hoskinson criticized Ethereum’s governance for relying too much on Buterin’s vision and decisions, stating, “Ethereum’s entire roadmap starts and ends with Vitalik.” He argued that Ethereum’s direction, such as its shift from sharding-based optimizations to layer-2 rollups, stems from Buterin’s influence. 

Hoskinson also questioned how Ethereum would handle future upgrades without Buterin’s leadership, further reinforcing his point that Ethereum’s governance is overly centralized.

Cardano, on the other side, just underwent a hard fork called Chang to establish a more decentralised governance mechanism. With this update, ADA became a governance token that allowed its holders to cast votes on financing proposals for community projects and development.

Foundering organisations like Input Output Global (IOG), the Cardano Foundation, or Emurgo are no longer in charge of making important choices. Rather, streamlined and decentralised governance decisions are guaranteed by elected representatives and Intersect, a membership organisation.

Hoskinson Draws Comparision Between Cardano and Ethereum

Hoskinson underlined the harmony that Cardano seeks to achieve in its governance between efficacy, efficiency, and integrity. Cardano stays away from the extremes of Ethereum’s reliance on a single figurehead and Bitcoin’s “anarchy” by incorporating elected officials and a community-driven organisation. “You can’t run a decentralized protocol with one person making all the key decisions. That’s not true decentralization,” he said.

Hoskinson has criticised Ethereum, pointing out that the project’s constantly changing agenda has drawn attention. However, Buterin’s choice to concentrate on layer-2 rollups has come under fire for marginalising Ethereum’s foundational layer and enhancing layer-2 networks, which some claim have grown unduly “extractive.” This raises concerns about fee distribution and diminishing activity on Ethereum’s layer 1.

Even though Buterin is a key player, Ethereum’s decentralised structure encourages discussion. Controversial topics like the DAO hack rollback have even sparked hard forks that gave rise to Ethereum Classic.

As the CEO of the Ethereum Foundation and one of the eight initial co-founders of Ethereum, Hoskinson’s for-profit vision for the protocol conflicted with Buterin’s, leading to his termination from the project in 2014.

The Future of Ethereum

Concerning the future of staking, Buterin has reaffirmed his support for solo stakers on Ethereum, emphasising their relevance to the network’s security.

Speaking at the Home Staking Summit in Singapore, he complimented individual stakeholders for their independence from third-party organisations, making them less vulnerable to regulatory capture. 

Solo stakers contribute to Ethereum’s consensus process by directly staking their coins, rather than delegating to staking pools, resulting in increased decentralisation and network integrity.

The differing governance frameworks of Cardano and Ethereum have rekindled questions about what true decentralisation means in blockchain ecosystems. While Ethereum continues to progress under Buterin’s leadership, Cardano is relying on its new Voltaire-era governance to provide a more balanced, decentralised future.