Charles Hoskinson Calls Competition ‘Ignorant’ on Cardano Security

Published: April 25, 2023 │ 2:10 PM GMT

• A panel discussion on LLMs has put Cardano in the firing line.
• Questions about Cardano’s EUTXO model have given rise to security concerns.
• Charles Hoskinson has brushed aside criticisms, labeling them as ignorant.

The Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model employed by Cardano extends Bitcoin’s UTXO model that aims to support a substantially more expressive form of validation scripts. However, it has recently faced criticism.

In a discussion, several critics of Cardano, including Tarun Chitra, the founder and CEO of Gauntlet, and Robert Lesher, founder, and CEO of Compound, raised security concerns around EUTXO. 

LLMs Vulnerabilities

The discussion was hosted on “The Chopping Block” and centered around the potential vulnerabilities of smart contracts and their susceptibility to attacks by increasingly sophisticated language model learners (LLMs). 

Cardano’s EUTXO model bore the brunt of the debate as it was argued that it is less secure than other models.

However, the head of Cardano took to Twitter to call out the panelists and their discussion, labeling them “ignorant.” 

"1 transaction per block, because EUTXO is messed up", I love competition that is so ignorant that they don't even know they are lying. https://t.co/dH0zdqJyni

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) April 24, 2023

In the tweet, Hoskinson bracketed the panelists as Cardano’s competition but was not prepared to accept the concerns they brought up about his chain’s security.

His response was aimed directly at a conversation around the design choices of Cardano’s secure formal verification, which were being dissected by others in the crypto field.

Understanding EUTXO

Cardano’s EUTXO is similar to the traditional UTXO model employed by Bitcoin, which makes users spend unspent transaction outputs rather than account balances. However, the extension in the EUTXO is the smart contract capability. This capability is available while offering the security and scalability benefits of the traditional UTXO model.

While those called out by Hoskinson state that this design choice makes Cardano less secure, the founder of the chain and its supporters maintain EUTXO actually makes Cardano more secure. 

On the Flipside

• Proponents of Cardano claim that EUTXO “combines and matures Bitcoin’s security and Ethereum’s programmability.”

Why You Should Care

Cardano utilizes a Bitcoin-like UTXO model with many benefits and proven advantages. However, it generally lacks programmability. If Cardano’s model is superior to other account-based models, as it claims, it could benefit the blockchain ecosystem from now on. 

Read more about Cardano’s growth in Q1:

Cardano’s TVL Almost Triples in Q1; ADA Market Cap Rises 50%.

Read more about wrapped BTC coming to Cardano:

Bitcoin Liquidity Coming to Cardano with AnetaBTC on Testnet.