Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has criticized Ethereum’s latest research proposal, arguing that it revives concepts Cardano introduced years ago while failing to acknowledge the blockchain’s earlier work. His remarks have reignited the long-running rivalry between the two blockchain ecosystems.
Notably, the debate emerged after Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter introduced a proposal exploring native UTXO-style payments for Ethereum. The concept aims to improve storage efficiency by allowing simple payment transactions to function as one-time objects rather than remaining permanent entries in Ethereum’s blockchain state.
Specifically, Wahrstätter’s proposal seeks to address Ethereum’s growing state size while maintaining its existing account-based architecture. Instead of replacing Ethereum’s current system, the proposal introduces native UTXOs for basic payments, borrowing principles from Bitcoin’s transaction model.
According to the proposal, this approach could reduce the amount of permanent blockchain storage required for simple payment transactions by roughly 99.8%. Transaction data would primarily be preserved through event logs and cryptographic commitments rather than occupying permanent state.
Additionally, the design is also intended to work alongside Ethereum’s proposed Frame Transactions architecture, allowing traditional account transfers, UTXO-based payments, sponsorship mechanisms, and gas payments to coexist within the same transaction flow.
 
Meanwhile, the proposal quickly drew criticism from Hoskinson, who argued that Cardano has spent nearly a decade developing similar concepts through its Extended Unspent Transaction Output (EUTXO) model.
“It’s not like I’ve been literally working on this topic for over 10 years of my life and launched a cryptocurrency that was number three on coinmarketcap with millions of users to deploy it,” Hoskinson tweeted. “It’s literally a crime in the Ethereum inner circles to mention Cardano. EUTXO is the biggest innovation of the smart contract world, and Ethereum cannot mention it as they literally try to copy it.”
Hoskinson maintained that Cardano’s EUTXO architecture introduced major advancements for smart contracts, including better support for parallel transaction processing and more predictable execution.
Later, the Cardano founder expanded on his criticism during a livestream, arguing that Ethereum is increasingly pursuing technologies Cardano has been building since 2016.
According to Hoskinson, Cardano has previously solved several technical challenges involving UTXO-based smart contracts, including reference inputs and the integration of UTXO functionality with account-based systems. He suggested Ethereum is now moving toward solutions Cardano has already implemented.
He also argued that Ethereum has historically overlooked Cardano’s contributions before eventually adopting similar ideas elsewhere. He cited governance systems, treasury mechanisms, and consensus research as examples where he believes Cardano has been ahead of the curve.
However, Wahrstätter’s proposal does not reference Cardano or its EUTXO model. Instead, it describes the design as drawing inspiration from Bitcoin’s original UTXO payment structure while preserving Ethereum’s broader account-based framework.
The proposal focuses primarily on reducing blockchain state growth, improving scalability, and making payment transactions more storage-efficient without requiring a complete redesign of Ethereum’s architecture.
That said, while Cardano views the proposal as validation of the technology it has championed for years, Ethereum developers frame the initiative as another step toward improving network efficiency through practical engineering.
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