The recent departure of several prominent researchers and contributors at the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has increased uncertainty within the community. The lack of any detailed statement from the institution for days has raised question marks about both the future and the current management in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Separations and Community Reaction
While the separations at the beginning of the week initially caused great surprise, the issue quickly turned into a deeper discussion in the community about the Ethereum Foundation’s ability to manage the ecosystem. Community members, investors and people who held various positions in the past began to evaluate this failure and its possible reasons in the institution with their own interpretations.
Since there is no clear evaluation from the institution yet, many different opinions about the process come to the fore. Despite the increased criticism of leadership and strategy, especially in the recent period, the lack of a statement has further increased the uncertainty.
Management Criticisms and Alternative Suggestions
Former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist pointed out an important point at the center of the discussions. Feist emphasized that Ethereum’s governance structure and the economic interests of the network do not coincide and that this incompatibility is one of the main problems. Another issue that Feist brings up is that the Ethereum Foundation does not have financial influence over its ecosystem. According to the information shared by Feist, the amount of ETH held by the institution is less than 0.1 percent of the total supply and EF does not receive direct staking income or transaction fees from the network.
“The way to save Ethereum is for the community to create a new structure that is directly connected to the network and economically compatible,” Feist said.
Feist argued that in order for Ethereum to succeed again, a new institution that provides a steady flow of funds, is accountable to the community, and prioritizes growth is necessary. These suggestions included a $1 billion treasury, some of which would be created with staking revenues, and the creation of a board of directors focused on the appreciation of the ETH price.
Mini dictionary: Dankrad Feist is a name who worked as a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation for a long time and made academic contributions to the technical and strategic development of the network.
Tokenomics and Ideology Debate
Crypto journalist Laura Shin, on the other hand, argued that tokenomic principles were not given sufficient priority, especially in the strategic moves of the Ethereum Foundation in recent years. Shin stated that making transactions cheaper on side networks with Ethereum’s Dencun update, which will be implemented in 2024, harms the original investment narrative.
“Ethereum’s main mistake was that after Dencun, they did not look at every step in the tokenomic framework,” Shin said.
Opinions have come to the fore that the “ultrasound money” narrative in Ethereum, that is, the idea that ETH will become increasingly rare with the burning mechanism, was attractive to investors for a while, but the new scaling road map has weakened this dynamic. Shin expressed his criticism that the Ethereum Foundation focuses too much on ideological issues and does not give due importance to topics such as competition, business development and ETH price.
Internal Debates and the Question of Leadership
It was claimed that the Ethereum Foundation recently made some contributors sign a “mandate” containing certain obligations. Additionally, recent executive appointments and decision-making processes have also been a matter of debate within the organization. These developments also raised questions about whether leadership changes were effective in the recent separations.
The lack of an official statement from the institution paved the way for various speculations. Shin stated that the successive departures of top names caused Ethereum to lose its most qualified participants, and this could accelerate the “brain drain” in the ecosystem.
Shin opined that Ethereum’s executives’ reluctance to stop this brain drain will only strengthen competing projects.
