An Ethereum Foundation researcher has proposed a UTXO-based payment model that could cut permanent storage for payments by approximately 99.8%. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson accused Ethereum of replicating Cardano's EUTXO architecture without credit. The idea remains in research and would need a hard fork before deployment.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter has proposed a payment model that could sharply reduce Ethereum's long-term blockchain state, and the plan drew an immediate accusation from Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson that the network is borrowing from Cardano's Extended Unspent Transaction Output (EUTXO) model.
How the UTXO payment model works
The proposal introduces native UTXOs as one-shot payment objects that exist only temporarily rather than creating permanent account records. Under Ethereum's current account-based system, the first transaction sent to a new address permanently adds a state entry. Wahrstätter argues that many simple payments do not need this permanent storage and can instead be verified from transaction history, leaving only a minimal spent marker on-chain.
The concept draws on Bitcoin's UTXO model, where each transaction output is created once, spent once, and then removed from the active state. According to Wahrstätter, the approach could reduce permanent storage for payment transactions by approximately 99.8%. A new Ethereum account typically consumes 100 to 150 bytes of state, while a native UTXO would leave behind only about 0.3 bytes.
The proposal builds on the upcoming Frame Transactions standard, EIP-8141, and aligns with Vitalik Buterin's Lean Ethereum roadmap. Yet the work remains in the research phase, and no formal Ethereum Improvement Proposal has been submitted.
Hoskinson pushes back
Hoskinson reacted quickly, arguing that Ethereum developers are effectively replicating Cardano's EUTXO architecture without acknowledging its origins. In a post on X, he described EUTXO as "one of the most significant innovations in smart contract technology" and claimed Ethereum has consistently avoided crediting Cardano's contributions. He added that Cardano once ranked third by market capitalization and served millions of users.
The markets barely moved on the exchange. ADA traded near $0.17 after gaining 12.5% over the past week, while Ethereum changed hands around $1,754 with a market capitalization of roughly $211 billion.
Because the proposal is still under discussion, any implementation would require extensive community review and a future hard fork before it becomes part of the Ethereum network.
Source: TokenPost
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