Opinion articles present diverse views and do not represent the stance of (WEB3+)
Is Ethereum going to decline within 10 years?
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson dropped a bombshell: he predicts 'Ethereum will collapse within 10 years! It will become a passing phase in cryptocurrency!' This tech giant, who co-founded Ethereum with Vitalik Buterin, now points to three major design flaws in Ethereum, believing it cannot meet future challenges.
Vitalik Buterin strongly counters: 'Ethereum's upgrades will allow it to dominate the crypto world!' This article will succinctly break down who wins and who loses in this 'ultimate showdown' in the cryptocurrency space and provide clear ETH investment guidance to help you seize opportunities for wealth in 2025!
Hoskinson's three criticisms: Ethereum's 'fatal flaws'?
Charles Hoskinson believes there are three major problems in Ethereum's design that could lead to its lagging in competition:
Accounting Model (Account Balance Model)
Ethereum's account system only records the current balance of each address and does not store detailed historical data for each transaction. Hoskinson warns that this may cause data processing delays in high-frequency trading or make it difficult to trace the flow of funds during audits, affecting efficiency and security.
Virtual Machine (EVM)
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the core of executing smart contracts. Hoskinson criticizes its low efficiency, slow speed when handling large applications, high Gas fees (transaction costs), and limitations on scalability.
Consensus Mechanism (Proof-of-Stake, PoS)
Ethereum's PoS requires validators to stake ETH to participate in network maintenance, and Hoskinson believes this resembles a 'rich man's club', where larger stakers hold more influence, potentially leading to power concentration and harming fairness.
Analogy: It's like a club vote; those who contribute more money have more say, and the opinions of ordinary people may be overlooked.
Impact on Investment:
These issues may raise transaction costs, reduce speed, and affect the user experience of Ethereum and the competitiveness of ETH prices. Dune Analytics (May 2025) shows that the average Gas fee for Ethereum is 20 Gwei (about $0.50 USD/transaction), which is lower than the peak in 2021 (200 Gwei) but higher than Solana (about $0.01 USD). If unresolved, ETH may lose users and face price pressure.
However, the responses from experts and Vitalik Buterin show that Ethereum is actively addressing these issues!
A hundred schools of thought contend: Expert opinions and Vitalik Buterin's solutions
Expert Opinions
Gavin Wood (Founder of Polkadot):
The account model is suitable for smart contracts, and data tracking issues are engineering challenges that can be solved. The efficiency of the EVM is low, but its ecosystem (3,500 DApps, DefiLlama May 2025) is hard to replace. The 1.2 million validators of PoS (Dune Analytics) are sufficiently decentralized, and the risk of centralization is exaggerated.
Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation Researcher):
The EVM's Gas fee issues will improve with upgrades. The concentration of wealth in PoS can be alleviated by lowering the staking threshold, and the current design is secure and robust.
Anatoly Yakovenko (Founder of Solana):
Solana leads in speed, but Ethereum's total locked value (TVL, $60B USD, DefiLlama May 2025) far exceeds Solana's ($10B USD), making its ecological advantages unmatched.
Vitalik Buterin's Prescription
Accounting Model: Optimizing data access
Proposal: Vitalik Buterin suggested adopting 'Verkle trees', a high-efficiency data structure that compresses state data into small 'proofs', allowing nodes to quickly query historical records without storing complete data, enhancing high-frequency trading efficiency and audit convenience. This directly addresses the current issues with the accounting model.
Progress: The Verkle tree is scheduled for integration by the end of 2025.
Impact on Investment: Verkle trees will enhance transaction efficiency, attract more DeFi projects, and increase ETH demand.
EVM: Replace with RISC-V acceleration engine
Proposal: In April 2025, Vitalik Buterin proposed replacing the EVM with a RISC-V architecture. RISC-V is an open-source and efficient computing architecture with concise instructions that can process multiple smart contracts in parallel, improving transaction speed by 100 times (from 0.1 seconds to 0.001 seconds) and supporting zero-knowledge Rollups (zk-Rollups) to reduce Gas fees.
Progress: RISC-V is expected to be partially implemented by 2027 (based on Vitalik Buterin's X post, April 2025).
Impact on Investment: An efficient EVM will expand application scenarios and drive up ETH prices (CoinMarketCap predicts $6,000 USD by 2026).
PoS: Ensuring fairness and security
Proposal: Vitalik Buterin proposed the 'Beam Chain' upgrade to simplify PoS rules and reduce the risk of manipulation by large holders, planning to lower the staking threshold from 32 ETH. The '99% Fault-Tolerant Consensus' algorithm detects audits or attacks.
Progress and Status: The Beam Chain has not yet been upgraded, with testing expected by the end of 2025. The reduction of the staking threshold is still under discussion. The specific effectiveness of the plan still requires in-depth discussion.
Macro Analysis and Investment Action Guidelines
Macro Background (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, CoinMarketCap, The Conference Board, May 2025):
In May 2025, the U.S. economy slowed (Q1 GDP down 0.3%), but inflation stabilized (2.5%), and consumer spending increased by 0.5%, which is favorable for cryptocurrencies. Ethereum benefits from institutional funding, such as BlackRock's ETH ETF (managing assets of $5B USD). The uncertainty of the trade war may cause volatility, but ETH's market value ($310B USD) shows strong potential.
Recommended Action Guidelines: (All content in this article is not investment advice)
Hoskinson's criticisms highlight the challenges Ethereum faces, but Vitalik Buterin's solutions and ecological advantages keep ETH as an investment hotspot for 2025.
As a novice investor, you might consider starting with a small amount, setting a stop-loss point to reduce risk, and using dollar-cost averaging to invest monthly.
To diversify risk, it is recommended to spread funds to ETH and Bitcoin to balance returns and stability.
Conclusion:
Ethereum's showdown reveals: Technical issues can be resolved, and ETH remains the king of crypto! Share your ETH investment plans in the comments!
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