Adam Baker slams Ethereum's original design

Adam Buck claims to have warned early developers of Ethereum, but there is a lack of public evidence

Adam Back claims to have warned early developers of Ethereum about flaws in its architecture. However, there is currently no easily verifiable public evidence that he sent them specific warnings about today's controversial account model before the launch of the Ethereum network.

Core Points

Adam Back claimed to have warned early developers about the weaknesses of the Ethereum architecture, but did not provide public evidence.
Bitcoin's UTXO model and Ethereum's account system each have their own advantages and limitations.
Concerns about cryptographic signature security affect both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Despite his early criticism, Adam Back has not proved that he issued a warning to Ethereum's founders before it was launched.

Adam Buck attacks Ethereum's founding choice

A message released by Blockstream CEO Adam Back on October 10 rekindled the debate between Bitcoin and Ethereum. In the article, he defended Satoshi Nakamoto's choice of UTXO model and severely criticized the experimental attempts of early designers of Ethereum.

"It's almost like Satoshi Nakamoto understands distributed systems," Adam Back wrote. He later said that Ethereum developers were "young and naive" and lacked the necessary experience when building the network, which was built around an architecture he deemed "obviously flawed."

他的信息以一句重要的话结束：“我曾试图警告他们”。然而，Back 并未提供任何链接、日期或交流记录副本，以便核实这一警告的存在。

公共档案显示，他多年来一直批评以太坊。2019 年，他就已将该项目与 Theranos 相提并论。2020 年 8 月，他将以太坊与 Bitconnect、OneCoin 及其他争议项目归为一类，并谴责了部分 ETH 的预售行为。

这些立场证实了他长期对以太坊持反对态度。尽管如此，这些内容并不能证明他在 2015 年 7 月区块链启动之前，曾向其创始人警告过如今与其架构相关的具体问题。

UTXO 与账户系统回应两种不同的设计理念

比特币采用 UTXO（未花费交易输出）模型。其运作方式可以类比为现金：一笔交易消耗现有的单位，并创建新的输出，由所有者稍后花费。

以太坊依赖账户系统，其余额和状态随每次操作而演变。这种结构有利于智能合约的执行，因为应用程序可以直接在区块链上存储和修改信息。

UTXO 模型使得某些独立交易的并行处理更加容易。它还限制了用户和应用之间共享的状态量。相反，账户系统为构建金融协议和复杂应用提供了更大的灵活性。

Therefore, objectively describing one pattern as correct, while necessarily describing the other pattern as "damaged" involves judgments at the technical and political levels. Ethereum has been in operation for more than eleven years and has secured hundreds of billions of dollars in assets, despite the challenges associated with state growth, concurrent transactions, and contract complexity.

Network developers are also studying mechanisms that can recycle some of the advantages of UTXO. For example, EIP-8141 proposes a new transaction format to improve account abstraction and prepare for a more flexible signature system.

Cryptographic threats are also related to Bitcoin

Adam Back's statement is a response to a warning from Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake. Drake believes that advances in artificial intelligence may accelerate the process of discovering methods that can weaken elliptic curve cryptography.

In the most pessimistic scenarios, attacks may become feasible "within months rather than years." Therefore, Drake recommends gradually preparing to transfer funds to addresses where the public key has never been exposed.

However, such actual attacks have not yet been proven. Yehuda Lindell, chief cryptographer at Coinbase, said there is currently no sign that the mathematical assumptions protecting these signatures are being undermined.

More importantly, the choice between UTXO and accounts does not in itself solve this threat. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum use the ECDSA algorithm to authorize certain transactions. If there does exist a way to retrieve private keys from exposed public keys, both networks will be affected.

However, the UTXO model does provide Bitcoin with one practical advantage: Best practices encourage the generation of a new address after each payment, which reduces exposure of the public key. This advantage disappears when users reuse their addresses.

Old criticism, but unconfirmed warning

Adam Back has real legitimacy in the history of cryptography. The Hashcash system he proposed in 1997 inspired Bitcoin's proof-of-work mechanism. Satoshi Nakamoto also quoted him in the white paper.

However, this expertise is not enough to retrospectively confirm his claim. Due to the lack of dated files, it is still unclear to whom, when and for what specific risks Back's warnings were issued.

The most rigorous conclusions remain nuanced: Adam Back has long criticized Ethereum, but his claim to have warned its creators early against using the account model has not yet been confirmed in the public domain.