Opinion articles present diverse opinions and do not represent the position of WEB3+
Will Ethereum Decline Within 10 Years?
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has dropped a bombshell: he predicts that “Ethereum will collapse within 10 years! It will become a passerby in the cryptocurrency world!” This technology giant, who co-founded Ethereum with Vitalik Buterin, now points out three major design flaws in Ethereum, arguing that it cannot meet future challenges.
Vitalik Buterin strongly rebuts this: “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 cryptocurrency showdown, and provide clear ETH investment guidance to help you seize wealth opportunities in 2025!
Hoskinson’s Three Major Critiques: Ethereum’s “Fatal Flaws”?
Charles Hoskinson believes that Ethereum’s design has three main issues that could cause it to lag behind in competition:
1. Accounting Model (Account Balance Model)
Ethereum’s account system only records the current balance of each address and does not store detailed transaction history. Hoskinson warns that this could lead to data processing delays in high-frequency trading or make it difficult to trace the flow of funds during audits, affecting efficiency and security.
2. Virtual Machine (EVM)
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the core for executing smart contracts. Hoskinson criticizes its inefficiency, slow processing speed when handling large applications, high gas fees (transaction costs), and limited scalability.
3. Consensus Mechanism (Proof-of-Stake, PoS)
Ethereum’s PoS requires validators to stake ETH to participate in network maintenance. Hoskinson believes this resembles a “rich club,” where larger stakers have greater influence, potentially leading to centralization and harming fairness.
– Metaphor: It’s like a club vote; the more money someone puts in, the more say they have, and the opinions of ordinary people may be overlooked.
Impact on Investment:
These issues could drive up transaction costs, reduce speed, and affect the user experience and price competitiveness of ETH. Dune Analytics (May 2025) shows Ethereum’s average gas fee at 20 Gwei (approximately $0.50 USD/transaction), which, while lower than the 2021 peak (200 Gwei), is still higher than Solana (approximately $0.01 USD). If unresolved, ETH may lose users and face downward price pressure.
However, experts and Vitalik Buterin’s responses indicate that Ethereum is actively addressing these concerns!
Diverse Opinions: Expert Views and Vitalik’s Solutions
Expert Views
– Gavin Wood (Founder of Polkadot):
The account model suits smart contracts, and data tracking issues are engineering challenges that can be solved. The EVM is inefficient, but its ecosystem (3,500 DApps, DefiLlama May 2025) is hard to replace. The 1.2 million validators in PoS (Dune Analytics) are sufficiently decentralized, and the risks of centralization are exaggerated.
– Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation Researcher):
The gas fee issues with the EVM will improve with upgrades. The concentration of wealth in PoS can be mitigated by lowering staking thresholds; 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 ecosystem advantages unmatched.
Vitalik’s Remedies
– Accounting Model: Optimize Data Access
Solution: Vitalik proposes using “Verkle Trees,” an efficient data structure that compresses state data into small “proofs,” allowing nodes to quickly query historical records without storing full data, enhancing high-frequency trading efficiency and audit convenience. This directly addresses the current accounting model’s issues.
Progress: The Verkle Tree is planned for integration by the end of 2025.
Impact on Investment: The Verkle Tree will improve transaction efficiency, attracting more DeFi projects and boosting ETH demand.
– EVM: Swap for RISC-V Acceleration Engine
Solution: In April 2025, Vitalik proposed replacing the EVM with the RISC-V architecture. RISC-V is an open-source, efficient computing architecture with concise instructions that can process multiple smart contracts in parallel, increasing transaction speed by 100 times (reducing single transactions from 0.1 seconds to 0.001 seconds) and supporting zero-knowledge rollups (zk-Rollups) to lower gas fees.
Progress: RISC-V is expected to be partially implemented by 2027 (according to a Vitalik Buterin X post from April 2025).
Impact on Investment: An efficient EVM will broaden application scenarios and elevate ETH prices (CoinMarketCap predicts $6,000 USD by 2026).
– PoS: Ensure Fairness and Security
Solution: Vitalik proposed the “Beam Chain” upgrade to simplify PoS rules and reduce the risk of large holder manipulation, planning to lower the staking threshold from 32 ETH. A “99% fault-tolerant consensus” algorithm would detect censorship or attacks.
Progress and Current Status: The Beam Chain upgrade is yet to be implemented, with testing expected by the end of 2025. The reduction of the staking threshold is still under discussion, and the effectiveness of the specific solutions requires in-depth discussion.
Macroeconomic Analysis and Investment Guidance
Macroeconomic Background (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, CoinMarketCap, The Conference Board, May 2025):
In May 2025, the U.S. economy is slowing down (Q1 GDP down 0.3%), but inflation remains stable (2.5%), and consumer spending has increased by 0.5%, which is favorable for cryptocurrencies. Ethereum benefits from institutional funds, such as BlackRock’s ETH ETF (managing assets of $5B USD). The uncertainty of trade wars may trigger volatility, but ETH’s market capitalization ($310B USD) indicates strong potential.
Recommended Actions: (All content in this article is not investment advice)
Hoskinson’s critiques highlight Ethereum’s challenges, but Vitalik’s solutions and ecosystem advantages keep ETH as a hot investment topic in 2025.
As a novice investor, you might consider entering with a small amount, setting stop-loss points to reduce risks, and using a dollar-cost averaging strategy for monthly investments.
To diversify risks, it is recommended to spread funds across ETH, Bitcoin, balancing returns and stability.
Conclusion:
The Ethereum showdown reveals: technical issues have solutions, and ETH remains the king of cryptocurrencies! Share your ETH investment plans in the comments!