Ethereum Accused of Quietly Copying Cardano's Core Design

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has accused Ethereum of quietly copying its core design. In a recent proposal, Ethereum researcher Toni Wahrstätter suggested treating simple payments as temporary, one-shot objects rather than permanent account-state entries. This approach could reduce permanent state for payment workloads by about 99.8%, according to Wahrstätter.

Hoskinson responded by saying that Ethereum developers are copying Cardano's Extended Unspent Transaction Output (EUTXO) design without giving credit. He claimed that mentioning Cardano is 'literally a crime' inside Ethereum circles, pointing out that Cardano was once the third-largest asset on CoinMarketCap.

The proposed change to Ethereum's core design has not yet become a formal Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), and would still require community review and a hard fork before being implemented. Markets did not react strongly to Hoskinson's accusation, with ADA trading near $0.17 and Ethereum changing hands near $1,754.

The rivalry between Cardano and Ethereum has been ongoing for some time, and this latest development is part of that larger context. Cardano has sought to keep its EUTXO design central to its identity, even as parts of its community have criticized Hoskinson's leadership.