Cardano’s Ouroboros or Ethereum’s Slashing: Which is Safer?

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the Cardano blockchain, criticized Ethereum researchers for failing to study the project’s advancements over the last seven years. His comments came after Ethereum researcher Justin Drake discussed Cardano’s security in an interview on the Paul Barron Network, a crypto-focused podcast.

Drake claimed that Cardano’s consensus mechanism, Ouroboros, poses risks because it lacks penalties like slashing, where validators lose part of their staked cryptocurrency for malicious behavior. According to Drake, this allows attackers to act without consequences.

Hoskinson refuted these claims in a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating that Ouroboros provides strong security without relying on slashing. He emphasized Cardano’s inspiration from Bitcoin’s decentralization principles, which are adapted to its Proof of Stake (PoS) design.

How Ouroboros Differs from Classical BFT Models

Classical BFT protocols, used to some extent by Ethereum’s PoS, require validators to agree in rounds to finalize blocks and include slashing penalties for misbehavior. Hoskinson argued that Ouroboros avoids relying on such rounds and provides security through incentives and an innovative staking process.

Cardano’s consensus mechanism can tolerate up to 50% Byzantine resistance—meaning it remains secure even if half of the network participants act maliciously—without needing slashing or traditional BFT methods. Hoskinson asserted that this capability sets Cardano apart.

ADA vs. ETH: A Snapshot of Market Performance

At the time of writing, ETH gained 6.87% in the past 24 hours, trading at $3,920 with a market capitalization of $472 billion. Meanwhile, ADA surged 13.78% during the same period, reaching $1.15 with a valuation of $40.4 billion.

Cardano’s partnership with Ripple and the Ethereum Foundation’s continued focus on zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) highlight the competition between the two. Both blockchains are expected to see further prices as they expand their ecosystems.