Ethereum is Hotel California for the rich and horror flick

• Charles Hoskinson has thrown shade on Ethereum, a project he co-founded before moving to Cardano.
• Going by data from Mevwatch.info, 62 percent of all blocks added to the Ethereum blockchain in the last 30 days have enforced OFAC compliance.

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the Cardano blockchain, has continued aiming barbs at the Ethereum blockchain, comparing it to a horror movie. 

Hoskinson, in response to a graphic depicting the number of blocks produced by the Ethereum blockchain that are compliant with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) since the Merge stated that Ethereum is now comparable to both Hotel California and the Shining. 

Ethereum now has a two for one: Hotel California and the Shining https://t.co/O5X0gXAkuZ pic.twitter.com/27WY5BcpLo

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 11, 2022

The Shining is a popular horror movie released in 1980 based on a Stephen King novel. The movie has been interpreted to have consistent themes of subjugation and putting American imperialism in focus. 

Hoskinson explains the pop culture reference to stem from the fact that with the Ethereum blockchain adhering to censoring transactions based on OFAC recommendations, the U.S. government decides who gets to use the network.  

“Means that blocks are OFAC compliant. So the US government gets to decide who uses Ethereum,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet. 

The trend of OFAC-compliant blocks being the majority of blocks added by Ethereum validators has been a long-standing issue on the Ethereum network. It comes from miners, and now validators, using mev-boost—a service that allows outsourcing of block production to increase APR. 

Going by data from Mevwatch.info, 62 percent of all blocks added to the Ethereum blockchain in the last 30 days have enforced OFAC compliance. However, the developers of Ethereum have disclosed plans to correct the issue. 

In a recent update to Ethereum’s development roadmap disclosed by Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the blockchain, a new milestone of development called “the Scourge” was added to the document that will focus on ensuring that MEV (or Miner Extractable Value) is phased out from the network. 

Hoskinson creating tense relationships with other blockchain projects

The latest tirade is not the first time Hoskinson has pointed out flaws in Ethereum, which is a co-founder of, and wither blockchain networks. Shortly after Ethereum completed the move to being a proof-of-stake (PoS) network with the Merge upgrade, Hoskinson called out Ethereum devs for ignoring Cardano’s Ouroboros PoS implementation. 

He has also criticized networks like Ethereum Classic, calling it a dead project. He also recently described Dogecoin as a centralized project. This has earned him a controversial status in the crypto space even as Cardano also continues to receive its fair share of criticisms for moving too slowly with development.