Cardano founder warns: 'Ethereum will be gone in 15 years'
Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Cardano, predicts that Ethereum, the blockchain he helped shape, will be surpassed within 10 to 15 years.
Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Cardano, predicts that Ethereum, the blockchain he helped shape, will be surpassed within 10 to 15 years. In a recently released YouTube video, he names three fundamental flaws that, in his view, will herald the platform's decline.
Hoskinson compares Ethereum to iconic but now-dated technologies like Myspace and BlackBerry. “Ethereum is a victim of its own success,” he says.
Earlier he praised Ethereum's culture and ecosystem: “Great culture. A powerful ecosystem. Something that sticks around. And people who are incredibly passionate.” But he is now publicly voicing strong criticism. According to Hoskinson, Ethereum is dealing with several, “self-inflicted wounds” that experts warned about earlier.
He lists three core problems:
- The wrong accounting model
- An inefficient virtual machine
- A flawed consensus mechanism
In addition, he critiques the complexity of the solutions Ethereum has rolled out, such as economic emergency measures and the proliferation of so-called Layer-2 solutions. “They have to live with the consequences of their choices,” Hoskinson says.
A third fundamental problem, in his view, is the lack of a robust on-chain governance system, something Cardano has taken seriously from the start.
“We have carefully considered how to build a Layer-2 ecosystem that isn't parasitic, but truly symbiotic,” Hoskinson says.
Yet the numbers tell a different story. Ethereum remains overwhelmingly dominant in adoption: the network sees up to 41 times more daily users and transactions than Cardano. Ethereum also leads in developer activity, while Cardano has fallen out of the top ten most active projects.
Whether the roles will actually flip in the coming years remains to be seen.
