Ethereum's proposal to adopt Bitcoin-style UTXO payments could cut permanent state for simple transfers by roughly 99.8 percent, a shift that has reignited a long-running rivalry with Cardano.
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Ethereum UTXO plan targets 99.8% state cut as Vitalik credits Bitcoin
Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter proposed UTXO-style payments to cut permanent state by 99.8 percent, drawing a copying accusation from Cardano's Charles Hoskinson.
"EUTXO is the biggest innovation of the smart contract world and Ethereum cannot mention it as they literally try to copy it," Hoskinson wrote on X. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin separately credited Bitcoin developers for pioneering UTXO concepts such as Utreexo, saying the scaling approach seeks to blend UTXO-style state management with dynamic state.
On Ethereum today, the first payment to any address creates a permanent state record even when the transfer needs no ongoing account data. The proposal would prove a payment's existence from history and leave only one spent marker in state. A fresh account entry uses roughly 100 to 150 bytes, while a native UTXO would leave about 0.3 bytes. The design builds on Frame Transactions and EIP-8141, with Wahrstätter crediting Buterin for raising the topic.
The proposal has not become a formal EIP, and any change of that scale would require community review and a hard fork. Markets showed little reaction: ADA traded near $0.17 after a 12.5 percent weekly gain, while Ethereum changed hands near $1,754 with a market capitalization of $211 billion.
State Growth and the UTXO Alternative
Bitcoin introduced the one-shot structure through its UTXO model, where each output is created once, spent once, and then leaves the active memory set. Ethereum's account-based model keeps every address's balance and nonce in permanent state, which grows with each new user. The proposal would apply UTXO-style logic only to simple payments, leaving complex smart contract interactions on the existing account model.
Buterin's broader scaling vision combines multiple approaches. He has credited Bitcoin developers for concepts like Utreexo, which compresses UTXO sets using hash-based accumulators. Earlier this year, Buterin updated his Ethereum roadmap to prioritize quantum safety, and he has explored cryptographic obfuscation protocols including diamond iO in follow-up presentations.
Hoskinson's Copying Claim
Hoskinson's accusation fits a longer rivalry between the two ecosystems. Cardano's Extended Unspent Transaction Output design underpins its smart contracts, and the project has kept EUTXO central to its identity. Cardano's recent Leios scaling push has kept that design in focus, even as parts of its community have criticized Hoskinson's leadership.
The Ethereum design remains theoretical until developers move it into the upgrade process. Any protocol change of this scale would need community review and a hard fork, meaning the debate is likely to stay academic for now. But the proposal points to a broader convergence in blockchain architecture, as Ethereum explores state management techniques pioneered by Bitcoin and refined by Cardano.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
