Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, emphasized that the governance transformation in Cardano’s Voltaire era is designed to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a “dictatorship,” akin to Ethereum, while steering clear of Bitcoin’s “anarchy.” In an interview with Cointelegraph during Token2049 in Singapore, he criticized Ethereum’s governance structure, asserting that it depends excessively on co-founder Vitalik Buterin for guidance.
Hoskinson articulated that blockchains have two options: they can maintain a straightforward protocol like Bitcoin or appoint a singular leader. However, Cardano’s innovative governance framework addresses the “governance trilemma”—balancing “efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity”—by utilizing delegated representatives and a member-based organization known as Intersect to simplify intricate governance issues for voting.
When pressed on his provocative comparison of Ethereum to a dictatorship, Hoskinson clarified that Ethereum’s entire vision is heavily influenced by Buterin, stating, “Everyone looks to him for the roadmap and inspiration, and he’s the only one with enough influence to unite the community.” He questioned the future direction of Ethereum if Buterin were no longer involved, asking, “What would the next hard fork look like, and how quickly could they achieve it?”
Hoskinson pointed out that Buterin played a significant role in shifting Ethereum’s roadmap from a focus on sharding optimization of the base chain to prioritizing rollups and layer-2 solutions for scalability. Recently, the Ethereum roadmap has faced criticism for enabling “extractive L2s,” coinciding with a decline in activity and revenue from the base layer.
Despite acknowledging Buterin’s strong influence over Ethereum, Hoskinson noted that Buterin does not have unilateral control within the decentralized framework. The blockchain employs a combination of both off-chain and on-chain governance, which includes input from the Ethereum Foundation as well as community and stakeholder feedback regarding Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Major decisions are made during core developer meetings, and controversial choices can lead to hard forks, as evidenced by the rollback following The DAO hack that resulted in Ethereum Classic.
Hoskinson was one of the eight original co-founders of Ethereum and served as CEO of the Ethereum Foundation. However, his vision for a for-profit protocol conflicted with Buterin’s approach, leading to his dismissal from the project during a 2014 meeting in Switzerland.
While Hoskinson acknowledged that he has had a significant role in shaping Cardano since its inception, he emphasized that the network’s new governance model is structured to ensure that “whether Charles is alive or not, innovation will continue to thrive daily.”
Recently, the Chang hard fork in early September transformed Cardano’s native asset, ADA, into a governance token, empowering holders to elect representatives and vote on development proposals and community project funding. The founding entities—Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global, and Emurgo—can no longer independently initiate forks or upgrades.
Hoskinson highlighted that the collaborative dynamic between the member-based organization of researchers and engineers, known as Intersect, and the delegated representatives fosters a governance model that operates effectively regardless of the founder’s involvement. “They can communicate, vote, and utilize a blockchain-based government to regularly ratify a roadmap,” he said.
Cardano is also in the process of finalizing a constitution, which is expected to establish firm guidelines on key issues, including supply limits and governance structures.
**Magazine:** Proposed change could save Ethereum from L2 ‘roadmap to hell’