Ethereum co-founder Buterin and Cardano founder Hoskinson clash over blockchain design

A heated debate between Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has sparked a broader discussion on blockchain design, governance, and the practicality of zero-knowledge (zk) proof systems. The exchange began with Buterin's theoretical exploration of distributing zk proof workloads across multiple provers, proposing a system that could achieve verification in logarithmic star time through open-access registration and fault-tolerant retries.

Hoskinson, however, quickly challenged the practicality of Buterin's proposal, highlighting real-world constraints such as adversarial attacks, cloud failure risks, and hardware bottlenecks. He argued that Buterin's retry model for zk-proofs would be vulnerable to Sybil attacks, where malicious actors could create thousands of fake provers to disrupt the network. Hoskinson also pointed out the impracticality of a super-quick three-second retry loop due to the high hardware demands of zkEVM circuits, and the risk of network self-sabotage from escalating retries.

This debate is not the first time Hoskinson has critiqued Ethereum's design. In September 2024, he compared Ethereum's governance to a "dictatorship" and praised Cardano's Voltaire-era overhaul for avoiding the extremes of both Bitcoin's minimalism and Ethereum's founder-centric approach. Buterin, in response to growing scrutiny over Ethereum's reliance on Layer-2 networks, proposed a Layer-Zero upgrade that would replace the Ethereum Virtual Machine with a zkVM based on RISC-V standards, aiming to dramatically improve efficiency.

Despite these proposed upgrades, Hoskinson remains skeptical of Ethereum's long-term viability. He argues that an overreliance on Layer-2 networks could fragment the ecosystem and leave Ethereum vulnerable to more robust alternatives or even Bitcoin. Hoskinson has gone so far as to claim that Ethereum may not survive the next 15 years if it continues on its current path, highlighting the deep-seated differences in philosophy and design between the two blockchain platforms.