The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit entity in charge of promoting the development of the Ethereum network, has been in the spotlight recently due to a series of events and news that have generated criticism and expectations among the community.
A sector of the Ethereum community has been clamoring for a long time leadership change within the Foundation, pointing directly to the current director, Aya Miyaguchi. Pressure intensified with the suggestion that Danny Ryanan Ethereum researcher and developer who had already been instrumental in the leadership, assumed it again to drive structural changes in the organization.
The community’s dissatisfaction with the leadership is mainly due to the fact that the price of the Ethereum cryptocurrency (ETH), which has risen just over 2% in thirty daysdoes not finish improving its price on par with other cryptocurrencies such as SUN and XRP. Not only this, but the price of ether against bitcoin has only been bleeding for more than a year, as the graph below shows:
Vitalik Buterin, in response to the community’s outcry, announced on January 18 the project plan for Ethereumensuring that, indeed, “the Ethereum Foundation is going through difficulties and major changes in the leadership structure.” Likewise, the creator of Ethereum clearly and without room for ambiguity listed the changes they want to implement and those they do not. Among those desired, he cited:
- “Improve the level of technical expertise within EF leadership.”
- “Bring new talents, improve capacity and speed of execution.”
- “More actively support app developers and ensure that important values and inalienable rights (especially privacy, open source, censorship resistance) are a reality for users.”
- “Continue to increase our use of decentralized and privacy technology and the Ethereum chain, including for payments and treasury management.”
The following are the changes that explicitly will not be made, according to Buterin, who listed them with a certain sense of humor and cynicism, “because it is what the Ethereum Foundation does and this is not going to change”:
- “Execute some type of ideological/vibrational change from the feminized mentality soyboy to the mentality of bronze age”
- “Start aggressively lobbying regulators and powerful political figures (…) and risk compromising Ethereum’s position as a neutral global platform.
- “Becoming an arena for vested interests.”
- “Become a highly centralized organization.”
Is the community right to complain?
He chain activity analysis reflected that The Ethereum Foundation had sold up to 4,666 ETH, equivalent to about 13 million dollarsfrom January 2 to January 20. The community continued to pressure for these sales and in general for the foundation’s economic management model, clearly demonstrating its concern.
Consequently, on January 20, the Ethereum Foundation made a significant decision. They transferred 50,000 ETHequivalent to 165 million dollars, to a multi-signature wallet called Safe (previously called Gnosis Safe) that allows access to platforms DeFi and a lightweight account migration process.
This transfer marked what is supposed to be the start of a larger commitment between the Ethereum Foundation and the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) network they develop. This action also modeled one of the promises or work objectives that Vitalik Buterin had stated days before in his plan for the Ethereum project.
This movement was interpreted by CriptoNoticias as a strategy to mitigate the negative impact of ETH sales on the marketsince criticism pointed out that these transactions contributed to the depreciation of the cryptocurrency.
Community criticism, some of it constructive, urged Ethereum to do just that: use decentralized finance to find other forms of financing.
For example, staking your ether and spending the profits, or taking out loans in other cryptocurrencies using ETH as collateral. None of these options require the sale of the holdingscausing its price to not be affected. The Ethereum Foundation, therefore, responded to the community’s criticism.
The feuds on Ethereum continued yesterday
On January 21, 2025, tension within the foundation became more palpable when Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, expressed his discontent with the behavior of some members, calling it “toxic” and stating that it made the work of developers difficult. . This event marked a high point in the relationship between the community and the Foundation, especially after Buterin assured that He is the person who decides who is part of the Ethereum Foundation leadership team, motivated criticism that attributes centralization to the development of the network.
Today, the Ethereum Foundation is at a crucial moment, where the decisions made around the management of its reserves, leadership and interaction with the community could define the future development and adoption of Ethereum, as well as the price of its cryptocurrency. . Vitalik Buterin has not commented on the problems that have plagued the community in recent days on January 22.
Exploring DeFi as an alternative to directly selling ETH to fund operations shows adaptability in the face of criticism, but also underlines the need for more effective communication and a leadership strategy that responds to the expectations of its user base.
