Ethereum Copying Cardano? New Vitalik Blog Raises Eyebrows

Following a recent update by Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, several notable members of the Cardano community took to X to raise observations that suggested Ethereum was following the blockchain in innovation.

Buterin, in a recent blog post, recommended extending Plasma – a scaling solution – to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), using a parallel UTXO graph for ETH and ERC20 tokens to reduce the complications associated with account-based systems.

According to Buterin, Plasma, which fell out of favor with developers, could become significant again, given the development of ZK-SNARKs – a form of cryptography that enhances security and efficiency.

Buterin describes how validity proofs, notably ZK-SNARKs, might simplify Plasma’s structure. These proofs confirm the legitimacy of each block on the Plasma chain, minimizing the amount of data that users must download and possibly allowing for fast withdrawals in some situations.

Per the post, this approach could enhance user experience and security on Ethereum’s blockchain. While the blog post stirred excitement amongst Ethereum users, some Cardano users noted that the recent developments on the blockchain trail Cardano’s.

One such user with the X handle @JaromirTesar, claimed that the proposals from Vitalik mirror features already available on Cardano, echoing the thoughts of several other Cardano community members.

“In the last paper, Vitalik talked about liquid staking. Now we see a paper regarding the UTxO model and something that looks a lot like Hydra,” he said. According to the user, the recent development suggests that “Cardano is going in the right direction, and Ethereum is the one catching up.”

Along the same lines, Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, also reacted to Vitalik’s post. Hoskinson’s response, although subtle, echoed similar thoughts of other Cardano community members that Ethereum was copying features on the blockchain. Meanwhile, Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, in response to Vitalik’s post, tweeted that Solana edges over Ethereum in terms of cost and trust. “Better than honest majority bridges between DA domains => cheap and trust minimized solana <> ethereum bridge,” he tweeted.