A serious safety distinction between the Ethereum (ETH) and Cardano (ADA) blockchains has been highlighted amid a hack that led to the lack of $4.13 million. A Cardano DRep, often called “dori” on X, shared the safety of Cardano over Ethereum in a submit detailing how the compromise came about.
Ethereum MEV design blamed for $4.13 million exploit
Based on dori, the hacker exploited a vulnerability on the DeFi protocol, Makinafi, on Ethereum. They argue that Ethereum’s transaction-ordering design allowed MEV bots to revenue from the hack earlier than the malicious actor did.
Notably, resulting from Ethereum’s safety construction, the MEV bots reordered the hack transaction and captured a lot of the revenue. This resulted within the lack of roughly $4.13 million, which was cut up between the hacker and the MEV bot.
That is absurd. a hacker exploited a vulnerability in @makinafi on $ETH, however MEV bots detected it first and captured a lot of the revenue. Ultimately, Makinafi misplaced about $4.13M to the hacker and MEV bots.
It’s principally like a financial institution theft the place a authorities official exhibits up and… https://t.co/jWh4PInW8Q
— dori (@dori_coin) January 27, 2026
Dori insists that it’s the Ethereum design that allowed this to occur, because it prioritized revenue over safety. They in contrast the event to a “financial institution robber stealing cash, then a authorities official exhibits up and takes the cash from the robber.”
They emphasised that, in a good system, Ethereum’s precedence ought to have been stopping the hacker or recovering the funds, not permitting them to redirect the cash to themselves. Dori blames this lapse on the safety structure of Ethereum, a consequence of counting on a blockchain that prioritizes revenue over security.
Evaluating this to Cardano, dori maintained that the blockchain is healthier as “honest monetary infrastructure.”
For context, Cardano makes use of the eUTXO mannequin, the place every transaction’s validity is impartial of execution order. If transactions are reordered, it doesn’t create revenue alternatives and, extra importantly, sandwich assaults and MEV extraction are much more restricted.
In dori’s view, Cardano wouldn’t have allowed the precise state of affairs to happen on its blockchain. As such, they imagine that Cardano has a fairer monetary system compared to Ethereum. It’s because Ethereum permits highly effective actors to revenue when a hack occurs, negating its claims to be a “impartial” or “honest” monetary system.
Makinafi funds restoration confirmed
It’s value mentioning that regardless of dori’s stance, Makinafi later recovered a lot of the stolen funds.
This was executed in collaboration with MEV builders and validators, who applied a restitution plan for affected customers.
Curiously, regardless of the battle for supremacy between Cardano and Ethereum, in December 2025, a Midnight developer hinted at a potential integration between each blockchains. The concept is to have Ethereum and Cardano wallets join straight with out switching ecosystems.
