How Cardano is different from Ethereum (2.0)?

Question

As far as I know, the Cardano project was started to cover issues/problems with Ethereum blockchain. Proof-of-work and governance are some of them.

However, Ethereum 2.0 is promising to cover those issues.

So in this context, how is Cardano different from Ethereum 2.0?

Answer 1

TL;DR:

1. Research-led design (102 academic papers to-date)
2. eUTXO transaction model (vs. Ethereum's account-based models)
3. Formal verification (related to 1.)
4. Functional-language-based (Haskell-based) smart contract language and VM (Plutus vs. Solidity)
5. Strong presence in emerging economies (Africa and Asia) in order to accelerate economic development and accelerate adoption
6. Guarantees regarding cost and executability of a smart contract prior to deployment, avoiding unnecessary gas fees.

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I'm not an expert, so don't expect this to be a complete answer. But, Cardano is being developed in the context of academia and industrial partnerships. As of writing, the developers of Cardano (and their associates) have produced 102 academic papers formalizing the mathematical behavior of blockchains, generally, and of the delegated proof of stake and extended UTXO (unspent transaction output) model that the Cardano blockchain has spearheaded.

Related is that a very large emphasis is being placed on formal verification of Cardano's source code/implementation. Formal verification is the process of using software to prove, mathematically, that a certain set of code performs exactly as its designed to. A simple example would be formal verification of a function that calculates the hypotenuse of a right triangle given the lengths of the perpendicular sides. A formal verification system would operate on the source code (not the binary output, I understand) to verify that the routine does compute (and only computes, I think?) the Pythagorean theorem and isn't a virus that you might otherwise execute on your system.

Related to the above is the development of a function programming language based on Haskell, called Plutus to be used with Cardano's smart contracts platform (also called Plutus). By contrast Ethereum's smart contract language is called Solidity and is loosely based on ECMAScript/JavaScript, Python, and C++. Functional programming languages (LISP, Scala, Haskell) are preferred in environments where algorithmic and runtime safety is paramount, since the use of functions over classes/objects ensures side-effect free programs which are unlikely to mutate in an unintended way.

Additionally, Cardano is looking to work within a solid regulatory framework. Recently, the Cardano development company announced a partnership with the Ethiopian government to establish a decentralized identity system using the Cardano blockchain.

Cardano is also working hard in developing countries to bank the unbanked and provide loans and opportunity to historically disenfranchised communities.

Additionally, the Plutus platform includes, as a design goal, the feature that the cost to execute a smart contract is known prior to deployment (unlike Solidity) and the Plutus platform provides strong guarantees about the runtime behavior of your contract (it will either execute successfully or fail to execute, it won't fail while still incurring fees for partial execution.

Answer 2

I think ETH, no matter how and what it builds will be inferior to Cardano in many ways! Some of the core underlying reasons for that are:

1. ETH is an Account model vs Cardano's Extended UTXO model
2. ETH Smart contracts for its tokens vs Cardano's native tokens (huge benefit here)
3. ETH 2.0 is supposed to scale only upto a 100000 TXns at the most. Cardano with Hydra we are talking more like a Million +
4. Babel fees is a killer and is only on Cardano.
5. The on-chain governance on Cardano will always have a head start over ETH.
6. Solidity is buggy and unreliable. While Haskell, Plutus may be tough to learn, but they work like a charm. So more reliability.
7. People underestimate IELE and what it can do. Hope you watched Charles' video of "The island, the pond and the Ocean". Many don't even realize what we are achieving there.
8. And don't underestimate ATALA Prism which will enable Cardano to easily work with Governments and traditional world

With all the above I just scratched the surface. Idiots think that decentralized means Wild Wild West. It is far from truth. The power of research, papers, provable languages like Haskell, Plutus... sky is the limit. And we have got some of the best talent in the community.

For ETH even to live with 2.0 is a huge struggle unlike what is being written & sold on social media. The foundation pillars are what make a blockchain great. ETH foundations are shaky at best. We are seeing the results. I actually think that in the long run blockchains like ALGO, AVAX might give better competition to Cardano than ETH.

Answer 3

The staking experience for the end user is completely different as well. Staking on Cardano is a well thought out and planned activity, rather than an after thought of patched together services. So for example, running a stake pool/validator on Cardano is more straight forward. As so is actually staking. There is no central authority that has to approve you to be a validator or to approve your stake to be staked/unstaked. There is no lockup period for staking/unstaking. Your ADA is liquid while staking without you having to take on any third party (smart contract) risk.