Cardano cofounder Charles Hoskinson has accused Ethereum developers of adopting ideas first developed within the Cardano ecosystem while failing to acknowledge their origins.
His comments came after Ethereum researcher Toni Wahrstätter introduced a proposal that would bring native UTXO functionality to Ethereum in an effort to reduce long term blockchain state storage for payment transactions.
Hoskinson Says Cardano Solved These Problems Years Ago
According to Hoskinson, the proposal closely resembles concepts that Cardano has been researching and developing since the network’s inception.
In a post on X, he argued that Extended UTXO, commonly known as EUTXO, represents one of the most significant innovations in smart contract design and claimed that Ethereum has avoided referencing Cardano even as it explores similar approaches.
Wahrstätter’s proposal outlines a payment model that would retain only a minimal record of completed transactions in Ethereum’s active state while storing the remaining transaction data in the blockchain’s historical record. The research suggests this method could reduce permanent storage requirements for payment related activity by as much as 99.8% while preserving Ethereum’s existing account based architecture.
The proposal also incorporates elements of Bitcoin’s UTXO model, allowing one time transaction outputs while maintaining compatibility with Ethereum accounts and smart contracts. It further relies on the proposed EIP 8141 framework, which would enable users to spend UTXOs without first holding ETH to cover gas fees.
Cardano Founder Points to Years of Prior Research
Hoskinson expanded on his criticism during a livestream on X, where he reviewed Wahrstätter’s announcement and argued that it overlooked Cardano’s extensive work in the same area.
He noted that Cardano has spent the past decade developing Extended UTXO based smart contracts and highlighted the project’s research paper on Chimeric Ledgers, which explored methods for operating UTXO and account based systems simultaneously.
According to Hoskinson, Ethereum developers previously dismissed UTXO based smart contracts as impractical, only to later begin exploring comparable concepts as part of the network’s long term development roadmap.
Broader Criticism of Ethereum
During the livestream, Hoskinson broadened his criticism beyond the latest proposal, arguing that Ethereum has repeatedly adopted concepts after initially rejecting or dismissing them when introduced by Cardano.
He cited governance systems and treasury models as examples, claiming Ethereum has gradually moved toward similar structures following organizational and financial challenges within the Ethereum Foundation.
Hoskinson also suggested that Ethereum may eventually embrace Cardano’s work on privacy technology and post quantum cryptography through IOHK’s Midnight project, as well as formal verification methods built around the Lean programming language. He predicted those technologies could eventually become part of Ethereum’s ecosystem without receiving recognition for Cardano’s earlier contributions.
The remarks continue a long running rivalry between the two blockchain communities. Earlier this year, Hoskinson announced plans to shift much of the Cardano community’s engagement from X to Discord, arguing that the social media platform had become increasingly hostile. Despite that move, he said he would continue using X to host livestreams, including the broadcast in which he shared his latest criticism of Ethereum.#crypto#cryptonews https://coinsignals.net https://t.me/coinsignalpublic
