Cardano founder slams Ethereum as a ‘dictatorship’

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano (ADA), is never one to shy away from stirring the pot. 

In a recent interview, Hoskinson didn’t hold back as he took aim at Ethereum (ETH), comparing its governance structure to—a “dictatorship.” 

In his view, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s famed co-founder, holds a little too much sway over the direction of what is, ironically, supposed to be a decentralized network.

Cardano, he claimed, avoids this pitfall through its Voltaire-era governance model. This upgrade empowers the community to lead decision-making, preventing the concentration of power in any one person’s hands.

According to the American entrepreneur, Cardano’s approach also sidesteps the “anarchy” he sees in Bitcoin (BTC), offering a balanced alternative to both extremes, when talking with Cointelegraph at Token2049 in Singapore.

“If you have those three things, then you have a fair shot of avoiding the anarchy of Bitcoin or the dictatorship of Ethereum, and you actually have something that can move forward with one voice, but it’s still decentralized at the end of the day because it represents everybody.”

Elaborating on his eyebrow-raising remark that likened Ethereum to a dictatorship, Charles Hoskinson didn’t back down. 

He emphasized that Ethereum’s entire vision is essentially wrapped around Vitalik Buterin. 

“Everyone looks to him for the roadmap, for inspiration, and he’s the only person with enough influence to rally the community,” Hoskinson said, pointing out the reliance on Buterin. Without him, he questioned whether Ethereum could maintain its momentum: “If you removed him from the picture, what would the next hard fork look like? How quickly could they get there?”

The Cardano founder didn’t stop at just critiquing Ethereum’s leadership. He also laid the blame squarely on Buterin for Ethereum’s strategic shift. 

Originally, Ethereum was supposed to scale through sharding—optimizing its core—but Buterin steered the ship toward rollups and layer-2 solutions. While this approach has allowed Ethereum to scale in the short term, it hasn’t been without its detractors. 

Recently, critics have taken aim at the rise of “extractive L2s,” as Ethereum’s base layer has seen a dip in both activity and fee revenue.

“Where did the move to embrace layer 2s or rollups come from?” Hoskinson asked. “Was it the brainchild of some random Ethereum engineer, or was it Buterin driving the narrative, writing blog posts, talking about it, and pushing for it?” 

This, in Hoskinson’s eyes, reinforces the notion that Ethereum’s future is too heavily dictated by one person’s vision, rather than a decentralized community.