Cardano Founder: Ethereum Won’t Survive The Next 10 To 15 Years

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In an epic showdown of cryptographic philosophies, Charles Hoskinson, the visionary who birthed Cardano and later fled Ethereum‘s embrace, recently delivered his candid thoughts during an ask-me-anything session on April 23. Spoiler alert: Ethereum, according to Hoskinson, is not long for this world—10 to 15 years at best. It’s a bold prediction, one that you’d expect only a founder of a rival project to make. But who doesn’t love a good drama in the blockchain world?

Ethereum Faces 15-Year Deadline: Cardano Founder

When asked, “What would you do differently if you were running Ethereum?”, Hoskinson unleashed a flurry of critiques. According to him, Ethereum’s founders made three cardinal mistakes: “the wrong accounting model, the wrong virtual machine, and the wrong consensus model.” A trifecta of poor choices that could doom the network. “They were warned,” Hoskinson quipped, “but they didn’t listen. Now look at them.” The fixes Ethereum has adopted thus far, he claims, have only caused more chaos—layer-2 solutions, slashing economics, and other “innovations” have resulted in unforeseen consequences that are starting to backfire. Classic.

As for salvation? Well, it would require parallel workstreams, says Hoskinson. First, he believes, Ethereum needs to “kick its addiction” to proof-of-stake. It’s like the blockchain equivalent of a bad relationship—it’s time to move on. He floated the idea of a “telescoping protocol design,” pointing to Cardano’s Ouroboros-Leios upgrade path as the ideal solution. If Ethereum had an ounce of sense, he suggests, they’d look into RISC-V instruction sets and Narwhal-and-Tusk-style consensus. No, I’m not making these names up. Blockchain really does sound like a sci-fi novel sometimes.

But here’s the kicker: Ethereum’s real problem isn’t even technical. It’s governance—or the lack thereof. “Ethereum doesn’t have a good on-chain governance system,” Hoskinson asserts. Without it, protocol upgrades will continue to be a fragile mess, he warns. The real solution? Building a governance system would take a whopping “five to seven years”—a timeline that’s probably longer than most people’s attention spans in crypto.

Now, let’s talk about the ticking clock. In what can only be described as a prophetic moment, Hoskinson boldly predicted that Ethereum will not survive beyond 15 years. Yes, you read that right. The second-largest smart contract platform is expected to implode as layer-2 networks siphon away its life force, leaving the base chain struggling to maintain its relevance. It’s like watching a once-great empire crumble under the weight of its own overreaching ambition. Could this be Ethereum’s version of a “hostile divorce” from its scaling solutions? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Hoskinson is betting on the rise of Bitcoin DeFi and faster monolithic chains to outpace Ethereum, with a side order of Cardano’s own flourishing ecosystem. “Once Bitcoin DeFi turns on, the Total Value Locked (TVL) will be larger than Ethereum’s,” he gleefully prophesied. He likened Ethereum’s existential crisis to the downfall of MySpace and BlackBerry—two companies that failed to pivot when “fundamentally different paradigms” crept up on them. Ouch. There’s no hiding the sarcasm here.

Let’s not forget the contrast Hoskinson drew between Cardano and Ethereum’s roadmaps. Cardano is already marching ahead with its RISC-V-based virtual machine, extended UTXO accounting, and a non-parasitic approach to layer-2 scaling. Whereas Ethereum is still fiddling around with solutions that, as Hoskinson puts it, “put on a good show but don’t quite do the job.”

Now, while Cardano’s governance is admittedly “a bit weird” at the moment, Hoskinson confidently predicts that it will be “awesome in three to five years.” Ethereum? Well, good luck with that transition—Hoskinson believes Ethereum’s growing pains will be much slower and messier, giving competitors plenty of time to swoop in and steal the show. So, expect “users to gradually migrate to other places” while Ethereum continues to try and keep it all together.

The Ethereum community might dismiss Hoskinson’s comments as the rants of a rival, but his warning is hard to ignore. The platform is facing a real crisis of identity, and without a complete overhaul of its architecture and governance, it risks fading into irrelevance.

As for the market, ADA is currently trading at $0.6872. Because, of course, this whole blockchain soap opera is ultimately about the money.

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2025-04-24 14:15