The founder of the Cardano blockchain Charles Hoskinson and Ethereum developers got into an argument about the implementation of proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus – the Merge.
Evan Van Ness, a Web3 investor, claimed that the Ethereum Merge could have been done earlier. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin agreed, saying that they should have implemented an NXT-like chain-based PoS. Hoskinson, who is also a co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, jumped in. He said Ethereum developers should have implemented the Snow White Protocol to ensure a faster shift to PoS consensus. Hoskinson believes doing so would have saved Ethereum a lot of pain and effort.
The Snow White Protocol is one of the initial protocols to provide end-to-end, formal proofs of security for a PoS system. The Cardano boss believes that his ideas regarding the technical upgrades on the Ethereum network from 2014 still hold better than what the Ethereum network has upgraded to post Merge. However, this didn’t go well with Van Ness who reminded Hoskinson that he was fired from Ethereum within six months because of his poor behavior and lack of any significant technical contribution.
And this opened a can of worms. Hoskinson accused Ethereum developers of disregarding Ouroboros – a secure PoS blockchain and the first protocol to be based on peer-reviewed research. He said the current version of its PoS upgrade with custodial staking is a bad design. Hudson Jameson, the Ethereum core developer, called out the Cardano blockchain co-founder’s claims about the Ouroboros protocol implementation. He said Ethereum developers disliked Cardano because of Hoskinson’s attitude and actions as the face of Cardano. Not to let off Jameson so easily, Hoskinson said they don’t need to hate anyone or develop bizarre, conspiratorial thinking to accomplish their goals. He added that Cardano doesn’t need cryptocurrency to be successful to succeed.
