Charles Hoskinson: Ethereum will collapse within 15 years – 3 reasons why

• Cardano’s founder expects Ethereum to be dead in 10 years. 
• He cited parasitic L2s and upcoming Bitcoin DeFi as major threats. 

Charles Hoskinson cautioned that Ethereum [ETH] might not survive by the next decade. In an interview on X, the Cardano founder said, 

“I don’t think Ethereum will survive for more than 10-15 years. The L2s will continue to suckle out all the alpha, users will gradually migrate to other places, and they’re going to be eclipsed by Bitcoin DeFi.” 

Ethereum challenges

He mentioned three key problems of Ethereum: the wrong protocol, virtual machine, and consensus model that were ‘self-inflicted.’

However, he added that the changes are tough to implement, noting that the chain might die like MySpace and BlackBerry. 

In addition, Solana [SOL] and Sui [SUI] could dent Ethereum’s market share further. Hoskinson was a co-founder of Ethereum before launching Cardano. 

 Some protocol founders within Ethereum shared a similar sentiment. Last week, Hayden Adams, Uniswap founder, praised Solana’s clear, fast-tracked vision compared to ETH. He said, 

“Solana has a better roadmap, team, and approach if the plan is to do DeFi on L1 /vertical scaling. Ethereum has been working towards L2-centric / horizontal scaling roadmap for 5+ years.” 

For his part, Armani Ferrante, founder of Solana-based Backpack exchange, said it was too late for Ethereum to scale L1. 

“It’s way too late for Ethereum to compete at the L1 scaling game. Instead, embrace the path chosen. Build Ethereum native rollups, do them better than anyone else, and commit.”

Despite the divided opinions on the Ethereum scaling approach, it pushed to upgrade both L1 and L2 systems. The Ethereum Pectra and Fusaka are designed to enhance the chain’s scalability and competitiveness. 

But Avichal Garg, founder of Electric Capital, dismissed the Ethereum death calls and stated, 

“ETH turns 10 years old in July 2025. For comparison, when BTC turned 10 in Jan 2019: Price had collapsed from $20k to $4k, no institution or govt took BTC seriously, ETFs, DeFi & stables didn’t exist. It’s foolish to think ETH is done.”

That said, Ethereum network activity (addresses) spiked nearly 10% mid-week, but spot market bids eased as of the time of writing.

ETH stalled at $1.8K as investors pocketed profit from the 17% price rally. The $1.6K and $1.7K were key supports to watch in the short term.