• Hoskinson critiqued Ethereum’s governance, comparing it to a dictatorship centered around Vitalik Buterin.
• Cardano’s model aims to balance efficiency and democracy, avoiding Bitcoin’s anarchy and Ethereum’s centralization.

In a recent appearance at Token2049 in Singapore, Cardano [ADA] co-founder Charles Hoskinson stirred the pot by critiquing Ethereum [ETH]’s governance structure.

He argued that the platform’s reliance on co-founder Vitalik Buterin for guidance raises concerns about centralized control, likening it to a “dictatorship.”

In stark contrast, Hoskinson highlighted Cardano’s upcoming Voltaire-era governance model, which he believes will foster a more decentralized and democratic framework, steering clear of both authoritarianism and the “anarchy” he associates with the Bitcoin[BTC] model.

His remarks have sparked fresh discussions on the divergent paths of these leading blockchain projects. 

He said, 

“Everybody looks to him for the roadmap. Everybody looks to him for inspiration, and he’s also the only person who has enough power to rally people.” 

Following this, he posed a thought-provoking question, 

“If you were to remove him from the equation right now, what’s the next hard fork going to look like, and how quickly can they actually get there?”

Ethereum’s roadmap questioned

Hoskinson argued that Buterin significantly influenced the Ethereum roadmap by shifting its focus from sharding-based optimizations of the base chain. Instead, Buterin emphasized a reliance on rollups and layer-2 solutions for scalability.

This pivot has sparked considerable criticism in recent months, as many believe it has inadvertently empowered “extractive L2s,” leading to a decline in both fee revenue and activity on the Layer 1 network.

Such changes have raised concerns about the long-term sustainability and health of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Recently, Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder weighed in on the matter in a post on X(formerly Twitter), and stated, 

“Those arguing that L2s have become misaligned clearly haven’t read @VitalikButerin’s Rollup centric roadmap from 2020.” 

To which Buterin added, 

“The modern browser is basically a fully fledged OS within an OS, and pretty much all the apps we use these days run inside it” 

While Hoskinson asserts that Buterin’s vision heavily shapes Ethereum, it’s important to recognize that he does not have absolute control over the decentralized network.

Hoskinson’s take on the matter 

In conclusion, Hoskinson emphasized that blockchains face a crucial decision: they can either maintain a straightforward protocol like Bitcoin or appoint a central figure to guide operations.

 Cardano’s innovative governance model effectively addresses the “governance trilemma” of efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity.

This is achieved through the implementation of delegated representatives and a member-based organization called Intersect, which simplifies complex governance issues for community voting, ensuring a more democratic and participatory approach.

Putting Cardano in the limelight Hoskinson put it best when he said, 

“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.”