Challenging an established blockchain network often involves questioning existing technical and design choices. Gurhan Kiziloz has publicly expressed this perspective. With BlockDAG, he is positioning the project as an alternative to Ethereum’s existing design model. He has stated that BlockDAG is intended to address what he views as Ethereum’s technical limitations. The project is positioned toward broader adoption rather than a narrow use case.
Vitalik Buterin has spent more than a decade contributing to Ethereum’s development as a widely used smart contract platform. It is an extraordinary achievement that commands a ~$400 million market cap. Kiziloz has articulated a different assessment of Ethereum’s design tradeoffs: a network that has chosen stability over speed, permanence over performance, and in doing so, has left the door open for someone willing to walk through it.
BlockDAG is presented as an alternative implementation aligned with that assessment.
Differences in Transaction Processing ModelsThe technical comparison focuses on transaction processing models. Ethereum processes transactions sequentially. One block follows another. When the network is busy, fees spike and confirmations slow. This is not a bug, it is architecture. Buterin has defended this approach as a feature, arguing that eventual immutability provides the trust required for critical infrastructure. Kiziloz disagrees. He believes that a blockchain which cannot scale with demand is a blockchain waiting to be replaced.
BlockDAG’s Directed Acyclic Graph structure processes transactions in parallel. The project claims higher theoretical transaction throughput compared to Ethereum’s base layer. It retains Proof-of-Work consensus for decentralisation. It offers EVM compatibility so developers can migrate without rewriting their applications. Supporters argue that this design aims to address performance tradeoffs present in Ethereum.
Project Leadership Background and Operational ApproachThis is not a theoretical exercise. Kiziloz has built businesses before. Nexus International generated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2025, without outside investors, without a board, without the bureaucratic drag that slows most companies. He did it by moving faster than competitors thought possible and by refusing to accept constraints others treated as fixed. He has stated that similar operational principles are being applied to BlockDAG.
The philosophical divide between Kiziloz and Buterin mirrors a larger debate in the industry. Buterin believes blockchains should mature toward immutability, stability, unchanging, trustworthy precisely because they do not evolve. Anatoly Yakovenko of Solana has argued the opposite: that networks must adapt or become obsolete. Kiziloz sits firmly in Yakovenko’s camp, but with a harder edge. His public statements emphasize execution and adoption rather than theoretical debate.
Competition for Developer Adoption and Network UsageWinning, for Kiziloz, means taking market share. It means convincing developers that BlockDAG offers what Ethereum cannot. He argues that alternative architectures may reduce perceived tradeoffs between scalability and security.
This is not a message Buterin is accustomed to hearing. Ethereum has competitors, but few have come with Kiziloz’s combination of capital, conviction, and indifference to institutional approval. BlockDAG is described as being self-funded rather than venture-backed. He has funded BlockDAG himself, just as he funded Nexus. Adoption metrics are emphasized as a key measure of success.
Ethereum’s Network Stability and Design ConstraintsThe Ethereum community has weathered challenges before. Bitcoin maximalists dismissed it. Solana threatened its performance crown. Layer-2 solutions fragmented its ecosystem. Through it all, Ethereum retained its position as the default platform for serious decentralised development. But Kiziloz represents a different kind of challenger, not a technologist seeking incremental improvement, but an operator who has already proven he can build at scale and who views Ethereum’s dominance as a problem to be solved, not a reality to be accepted.
He has stated that he aims to build products capable of competing at scale. Gaming learned this when Nexus carved out a billion-dollar position in three years. Blockchain is learning it now.
Differing Long-Term Approaches to Blockchain DevelopmentButerin’s vision for Ethereum is one of gradual ossification, a network that becomes more stable, more predictable, more resistant to change as it matures. It is a defensible vision. It is also, in Kiziloz’s view, a vulnerable one. A network that stops evolving is a network that starts dying. BlockDAG is built on the opposite premise: that the blockchain which moves fastest, adapts quickest, and executes most ruthlessly will be the one still standing when the dust settles.
The fight is not metaphorical. Kiziloz is recruiting developers. He is targeting Ethereum’s application layer. He is building the infrastructure required to absorb migration at scale. Every decision is oriented toward a single outcome: making BlockDAG the obvious choice for anyone who has grown tired of Ethereum’s fees, Ethereum’s speed, Ethereum’s refusal to change.
Buterin built Ethereum for a world that values permanence. Kiziloz is betting that the world no longer exists, that users want performance, developers want scalability, and the market will punish any network that cannot deliver both. It is a high-conviction bet. But Kiziloz has made high-conviction bets before. He has cited past ventures as successful outcomes.
Summary of Observed Differences and Industry ContextEthereum is not going to disappear. It has too much infrastructure, too much capital, too much institutional momentum. But dominance is not the same as permanence. Market share can erode. Developer attention can shift. The network that was once inevitable can become merely one option among many.
Gurhan Kiziloz is building that option. He is building it fast, funding it himself, and running it with the same intensity that turned Nexus into a billion-dollar company. He is not waiting for Ethereum to stumble. He is forcing the issue.
The blockchain industry has seen founders who wanted to compete with Ethereum. It has not seen many who looked at Vitalik Buterin’s decade of work and said, simply: I can do this better. And then started proving it.
The project is currently being developed using a parallel transaction processing model.
