I feel like I have to preface this with the empirical fact that the last few crypto purchases I've made, and indeed the majority of Crypto I've bought in the last year has been Ethereum. I'm a fan of Ethereum. I'm a believer in Ethereum. But ETH 2.0, for the every-day user, is quite a let down.

#1 Minimum stake

ETH 2.0 chose to bizarrely lock out the vast majority of Crypto users and require a minimum amount of 32 ETH to stake, currently valued at $46,624. This is supposed to be a decentralised platform and yet, the people who before could buy a GPU for $700 and mine and earn an ROI are now locked out. The only choice left is to either stump up $46,624 in ETH and become a validator yourself, which puts your funds at risk of slashing if you don't have business-class Internet stability, or you can literally send your Cryptocurrency out of your own wallet in exchange for something like RocketPool's version of ETH... hang on.. that sounds a lot like trusting your funds to a third party.

On the other hand, Cardano's minimum stake is 5.5 ADA, plus the transaction fee of 0.17 ADA. That's currently $2.75.

#2 Decentralisation

Currently, two entities are producing the vast majority of blocks on ETH - Lido & Coinbase. While this problem is inherent to Proof of Stake networks (and not forgetting how a few entities produce the majority of Bitcoin hashrate) Cardano fares much better here - With the largest single entity (Binance) only controlling 11% of the active stake.

#3 Rewards

Current pro-rated calculations are putting ETH's staking reward's at a 4% ROI. Cardano's ROI averages at 5% but if you select a decent unsaturated staking pool, it can go as high as 7-8% ROI.

#4 Staking liquidity

What prompted this post was the discovery that, as of yet, there is no timeline on how people who staked $46,000 to ETH can withdraw these funds.

I've seen estimates placed at between 1-2 years which is when the Shanghai upgrade is due to be finished.

Staked ETH cannot be unstaked or transferred on the Ethereum network until after the Shanghai upgrade. This means that clients should only stake ETH that they plan to hold long-term

Let's compare with Cardano:

• Your funds never leave your wallet when you stake.
  
• Your stake automatically increases or decreases as you receive / spend ADA
• Staking rewards automatically compound
  
• You are free to change Staking Pools at will with no penalty at a cost of 0.17 ADA.

To me, this absolutely kills all credibility for ETH being for anyone other than the rich. You cannot stake to ETH unless you are rich or are willing to risk your funds. You cannot perform transactions on ETH, particularly when congested, unless you are willing to spend on high transaction costs. You cannot withdraw your funds because the developers didn't think that might be a priority for anyone.

I mean, what the fuck, really? You can say what you want, ghost-chain this, Hoskinson that, but surely even ETH maxis can give credit where it is due. Cardano got this right years ago.