The CEO of Cardano stated that Ethereum could have between 10 and 15 years of life left. Source: Grok.

Cardano records lower levels of transactions and active accounts than other networks.

The total value locked in Ethereum is USD 50,000; in Cardano, it is 300 million.

The first months of 2025 for the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem have been quite dizzying.

Starting with criticisms from its own community towards the Ethereum Foundation (EF), followed by a distant discrepancy between its development and the market of its native token (ether), and even the beginning of a new inflationary phase in the main network. The imminent arrival of its latest major update, Pectra, possibly on May 7, is also highlighted.

Now, even in that intense context, it seems a bit reckless to assert that 'Ethereum will not survive more than 10 or 15 years', as Charles Hoskinson recently did. What awaits Cardano then?

The statements from the CEO of Cardano (ADA) raise questions. If that's what will happen to Ethereum, 'what future awaits Cardano, a network with lower levels of adoption and use than Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum, Solana (SOL), BNB Chain (BNB), and many others? How many years, then, would Cardano survive in such a demanding context as the one its own CEO seems to suggest?'

It is impossible to answer those questions with certainties. It is also prudent to say that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies largely depend on the technology that makes them work. In that realm, the emergence of any innovation can change the equation from one moment to the next.

Perhaps in the next altcoin cycle, although this is very unlikely, a new DeFi application will be launched on Cardano that turns that chain into the heart of digital finance.

However, to respond to the question 'If Ethereum is going to die in ten years, how long will Cardano survive?', the past and present performance of ADA along with Cardano's activity can provide a perspective on what its future will be.

How has the price of ADA, the native token of Cardano, moved?

The native cryptocurrency of the Cardano ecosystem has performed poorly since its all-time high (ATH) in November 2021, when it reached 3.10 dollars, according to TradingView. At the time of this article, the price of ADA is sitting at 0.71. Since that moment until now, the price of ADA has shown a constant decline, except for some rises, such as in November 2024, when it reached 1.15 dollars.

However, reviewing the performance of ADA against that of ETH, Cardano's token shows an appreciation against Ethereum's from June 2024 until the time of this article, reversing a past trend favorable to ETH. This can be seen in the following TradingView chart, which shows the performance of the ETH/ADA pair. What do Cardano's on-chain metrics say?

Next, after reviewing the performance of ADA's price, we should review Cardano's activity.

According to data from Artemis, the total value locked (TVL) of Cardano is nearly 320 million dollars, a figure not to be underestimated, although significantly lower than that of Ethereum (50 billion) and other relevant networks like Solana, Tron (TRX), Sui (SUI), Avalanche (AVAX). For its part, TVL measures the assets deposited in the DeFi protocols of a network, being a key metric to evaluate its activity, adoption, and trust, as it reflects how much economic value is committed to the network.

The total value locked in Ethereum, at 50 billion dollars, is approximately 167 times greater than that of Cardano (300 million). Under the rare assumption that the lifespan of a chain is proportional to its TVL, if Ethereum does not survive more than 10 years (until 2035), as Hoskinson predicted, then Cardano would 'live' only 22 days from April 25, 2025, highlighting its limited scale.

Developer activity on Cardano

According to onchain, developer activity shows that Cardano, with 240 active developers and 1,892 commits (records of changes in the source code that reflect updates in a version control system like Git), is surpassed by networks like Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, BNB Chain, Polkadot, and others less known like Cosmos Network Stack, NEAR, and SKALE Network. Cardano records negative growth in commits (-23% in the last month) and in developers (-18% in three months), which would indicate a decrease in its development. This metric, although not definitive, can foreshadow future development potential, as greater developer activity and commits tend to correlate with innovation and adoption.

Low number of transactions on Cardano

Regarding the number of daily transactions, Cardano records an average of only 1 transaction per second in the last 7 days, according to cexplorer.

Extending the analysis further back in time, the number of daily transactions on that network has been falling since November 22, 2024, when it reached 138,000 operations that day. From approximately February 2025 until now, that metric fluctuates between 20,000 and 40,000 daily transactions.

Additionally, the days when Cardano exceeded 100,000 daily transactions were very few. A comparison with the previously mentioned networks again relegates Cardano to a distant place, in this case, in terms of daily transactions, according to Artemis.

The following chart shows that, for example, Solana on April 24 registered almost 100 million daily transactions, Tron exceeded 8 million, Sui nearly 2 million, while the network co-founded by Hoskinson operated with fewer than 30,000 transactions that day. Active accounts on Cardano.

In coincidence with the daily transaction data, Cardano had a peak of nearly 260,000 active accounts during late November 2024. From there, that measurement has fallen to the present, which shows 35,000.

Once again, reviewing that measurement in other ecosystems, Cardano is far outperformed, as seen in the following image. What would be the conclusion after reviewing Cardano's data?

All these metrics suggest what many participants in the cryptocurrency community have responded after Hoskinson's statement. A person on X who calls themselves 'sassal.eth' and identifies as an 'independent Ethereum educator' stated that:

"Cardano has been active for 8 years and basically has no users, but apparently Ethereum will be what doesn't survive more than 10 years. Yes, sure, buddy."

User on X.

Other comments that resonated on that same social network included: 'Who uses Cardano? Answer... absolutely nobody', or 'I've never seen anyone use Cardano in my life.'

In short, despite the rebound of ADA against ETH, in terms of probabilities and using Hoskinson's expression and the reviewed data as reference, Cardano would be closer than Ethereum to 'disappearing' in the next 10 years, although nothing guarantees that either or neither of these two networks will capitulate.