Cardano Founder Claims Ethereum Is Secretly Emulating Its Fundamental Design
July 8, 2026
Cardano (ADA) founder, Charles Hoskinson, recently made accusations against Ethereum (ETH), claiming that the platform is quietly adopting Cardano’s EUTXO logic without acknowledging it. The controversy arose after a new research design was proposed by an Ethereum Foundation researcher, Toni Wahrstätter, which introduced native UTXO-style payments.
In the proposed plan, simple payments on Ethereum would be treated as temporary, one-shot objects rather than permanent account-state entries. This stands in contrast to the current system where the first payment to any address creates a permanent state record, even for transfers that do not require ongoing account data. The new design aims to significantly reduce Ethereum’s state growth by proving a payment’s existence from history and leaving only one spent marker in the state.
Bitcoin’s UTXO model, where each output is created once, spent once, and then leaves the active memory set, served as an inspiration for this proposal. Wahrstätter explained that implementing a native UTXO system could reduce permanent state for payment workloads by about 99.8%, as fresh account entries typically use significantly more memory compared to a UTXO model.
Hoskinson was quick to respond to this proposal, accusing Ethereum developers of copying Cardano’s Extended Unspent Transaction Output (EUTXO) design for smart contracts without giving proper credit. According to him, EUTXO is a significant innovation in the smart contract world and Ethereum’s lack of acknowledgment is a form of imitation. He expressed his frustration by stating that mentioning Cardano within Ethereum circles is considered taboo and emphasized Cardano’s strong standing as the third-largest asset on CoinMarketCap.
Despite the controversy, the markets did not display a significant reaction to the allegations. ADA, the native token of Cardano, saw a 12.5% weekly gain, trading near $0.17, while Ethereum maintained its second-place ranking with a market capitalization of $211 billion, trading at around $1,754. The Ethereum design proposal has yet to become a formal EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal), and any protocol change of this magnitude would require community review and a hard fork.
Hoskinson’s complaint is part of a continuing rivalry between the Cardano and Ethereum ecosystems, highlighting Cardano’s commitment to keeping EUTXO central to its identity. Despite criticisms of his leadership within the Cardano community, Hoskinson’s efforts to push the EUTXO design forward have remained steadfast. The dispute underscores the ongoing competition between these two prominent blockchain platforms and the importance of innovative design in the development of smart contract technology.
