Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson criticizes Vitalik Buterin's strong influence on the developments of the largest smart contract platform. What's different at Cardano?

During a conversation at the Token2049 in Singapore, Hoskinson criticized the governance model of Ethereum. He claimed it is too dependent on founder Vitalik Buterin. With Bitcoin, by contrast, there is "anarchy."

The Cardano-founder explained that blockchains can choose to keep the protocol simple forever, as with Bitcoin, or to "choose a king."

However, Cardano's new governance model should solve the "governance dilemma" of "efficiency, effectiveness and integrity." This is because it uses delegated representatives and a member-based organization called Intersect to bring complex governance issues to a vote.

When asked to explain his controversial comment, Hoskinson explained that the "full vision" of Ethereum begins and ends with the 30-year-old Buterin: "Everybody looks to him when it comes to the roadmap. Everybody looks to him for inspiration, and he's also the only person who has enough power to rally people behind his ideas."

Ethereum uses a mix of off-chain and on-chain governance, including the Ethereum Foundation and community and stakeholder contributions to Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). Critical decisions are made at central developer meetings. Contested decisions can lead to a hard fork, such as the rollback of the DAO hack, which led to Ethereum Classic.

Hoskinson was one of Ethereum's eight co-founders and CEO of the Ethereum Foundation, but his vision for the protocol clashed with Buterin's. The young crypto-enthusiast fired him from the project in 2014.

The controversial figure in the crypto world has long been known for his controversial statements. For example, he recently called Cardano's Chang upgrade "one of the greatest technical achievements in human history." Moreover, a new protocol upgrade would make Cardano "faster than Solana."