Cardano founder calls the Chang hardfork a way to avoid “the anarchy of Bitcoin” and “the dictatorship of Ethereum”

What’s new? Cardano blockchain founder Charles Hoskinson has criticized the governance model of the Ethereum network during a speech at the Token2049 conference in Singapore, saying it relies too heavily on its co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Hoskinson is also a co-founder of Ethereum, but he was dropped from the project back in 2014 and has been involved in its development ever since.

Material by Cointelegraph

What else is known? Ethereum was mentioned in the context of discussing the Chang hardfork for Cardano, the first phase of which was launched on September 1. This major upgrade is aimed at implementing a new Cardano governance system, which will result in a complete decentralization of the project.

Thus, Cardano will have three governance bodies made up of users of the network, the Constitutional Committee, Delegate Representatives (dReps), and Stake Pool Operators (SPOs). While Cardano’s development organizations, Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global (IOHK), and Emurgo, will give up the keys to make upgrades, putting the project entirely in the hands of the community.

The team calls the transition to full decentralization “Voltaire Era”, the third and final era of Cardano’s development, and the upgrade itself is the most important event in the project’s history. The main principles of the project will be set out in a separate document, the constitution, work on which is currently ongoing.

Commenting on Chang, Hoskinson said that this upgrade solves the trilemma of blockchain governance by striking a balance between efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity.

According to the developer, Cardano’s new governance structure will avoid the anarchy of the bitcoin protocol and the dictatorship of Ethereum, where the entire vision of the project is locked into Buterin.

“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. 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?” Hoskinson wondered, adding in contrast, Cardano’s new governance model is designed so that “Charles, alive or dead doesn’t matter. There’s still going to be innovation on a daily basis.”

The developer also noted that Buterin is responsible for abandoning Ethereum’s base chain optimization and focusing on Layer 2 (L2) networks to increase scalability.

This decision has been criticized in the community in recent months as activity and fee revenues on the underlying blockchain have dropped significantly. Fees fell to a four-year low in early September, with a sharp spike only in recent weeks.

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However, Hoskinson stressed that while Buterin has a huge influence on the network community, he still does not have sole power in a decentralized system. In particular, crucial decisions are made at the main developer meetings.

For example, at a recent meeting, it was proposed to split the Pectra hardfork for Ethereum into two parts due to its high complexity. This upgrade is intended to improve the efficiency and scalability of the underlying blockchain. The proposal was approved at the September 19 meeting.

In addition, the inability to reach consensus in the Ethereum community can still lead to splitting the network into two unconnected chains. In 2016, the Ethereum Classic (ETC) network and cryptocurrency appeared in this way. Back then, the reason for the split was the controversy surrounding the Ethereum Foundation NGO’s decision to roll back the network before the hack of The DAO project to compensate victims. Notably, Hoskinson called Ethereum Classic a “scam” last year.

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Hoskinson was one of the eight co-founders of Ethereum and CEO of the Ethereum Foundation NGO, but his commercial vision for the protocol clashed with Buterin’s non-profit vision. Due to the disagreement, Buterin removed Hoskinson from the project in 2014.