Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Wenser ( @wenser 2010 )
The reform of the Ethereum Foundation is still ongoing. After Vitalik fired the first shot of the reform , the former executive director Aya Miyaguchi was demoted to the second line , and the new executive director Wang Xiaowei announced the follow-up plan in a community interview , the reform of the Ethereum Foundation has finally entered the real stage.
On June 3, the Ethereum Foundation announced the reorganization of the RD team and layoffs, focusing on network expansion and user experience; launching the Devconnect ARG Scholar Program . Today, the official account of the Ethereum Foundation issued another statement , stating the foundations latest financial policy.
It can be seen that the Ethereum Foundation has really begun to put aside its arrogance and make efforts to change. However, whether the plans released one after another can become a price booster for ETH and an innovation driver for the Ethereum ecosystem remains to be verified. In this article, Odaily Planet Daily will briefly analyze the recent changes and subsequent impacts of the Ethereum Foundation (hereinafter referred to as EF).
EFs internal transformation: The first blow was to the RD team
As we mentioned in the article New official takes office with three fires, the new executive director of the Ethereum Foundation reveals where EF is going? :
According to the LinkedIn interface , the number of active members under the EF organization is 281, making it a truly medium-sized organization.
Previously, the RD team was the department with the largest number of EF personnel. In addition, the RD team had the following problems:
1. The ambiguous relationship between EF researchers and projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. Previously, the incident in which Ethereum Foundation researchers Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist restaked themselves and joined the Ethereum restaking project EigenLayer as consultants once became a major storm in the Ethereum ecosystem. Although the two later officially announced the termination of cooperation with the project, the incident still shook the communitys trust in EFs internal management and the neutrality of team members to a certain extent.
Second, the EF RD team members are rigid and lack fresh blood. In September last year, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko issued a notice to the protocol support team to hire two new employees to be responsible for funding support work. This is the first recruitment of the department. As a core department of EF, this is the case, and the rigidity of other RD teams can be seen from this.
3. The EF RD team is overstaffed and the division of labor is unclear. Undoubtedly, as a medium-sized organization with hundreds of people, EF, which has a looser structure and focuses on decentralized organization, is not easy to manage. The job responsibilities of many people are not clear. The reasons for this situation are objective limitations, namely the looseness and decentralization of the crypto community; on the other hand, the Ethereum protocol has long been in a state of only Vitalik and other soul figures speak as orthodox and indulging in academic research and ignoring real application innovation and market demand.
Based on this, EFs self-mutilation will first cut the RD team, which accounts for the largest number of people and is quite core in the organization. In addition, the announcement emphasized that EF will reorganize the research and development team and rename the department Protocol to focus on the core challenges of protocol design; the reorganized Protocol team will work around three major priorities: expanding the scalability of the underlying Ethereum network, promoting blobspace expansion in the data availability strategy, and improving user experience. Some members of the RD team will no longer continue to stay, and other teams (within the Ethereum ecosystem) are encouraged to absorb these talents. It is quite similar to the situation when Jack Ma proudly shouted that Alibaba delivers more than a thousand outstanding talents to the society every year.
Of course, this move has not brought unanimous praise. For example, Kyle Samani, a pillar of the Solana ecosystem and co-founder of Multicoin Capital, commented , “Note that the definition of the word ‘focus’ usually means ‘less’, not ‘more’, especially that goals should not conflict with each other. But when we look at it from the perspective of goal 3 (i.e., L1, L2 network expansion, improving user experience), goal 1 (i.e., layoffs) and goal 2 (i.e., clear division of responsibilities) are contradictory.”
Subsequently, whether the EF Protocol department can truly embark on a path of protocol innovation in terms of EIP protocol proposals and other aspects will depend on their performance.
EFs External Communications: Searching for 100 Devconnect Scholars
Internal reform is one aspect, and external communication is also a top priority for EF. After all, with the development of the cryptocurrency industry, the Ethereum ecosystem has gradually become synonymous with old, rigid, and lacking in innovation. In simple terms, it has become not so cool anymore, and this is undoubtedly fatal as the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies is accelerating.
Therefore, EF has to use the annual Devcon event to discover the key nodes for external communication in advance . Introduction, the Scholars Program is committed to expanding the influence of Ethereum by connecting Ethereum to new communities, industries, and ideas. 100 scholars will learn and create together to build bridges between Ethereum and the rest of the world. The 2025 scholars will include five categories:
(1) Ethereum community organizer;
(2) Legal and public sector professionals;
(3) Journalists;
(4) Artists;
(5) Developers and other types of builders.
The application channel is here: https://devconnectargscholars.paperform.co/
The application deadline is June 30, which is nearly a month. It is worth mentioning that this years Devconnet event will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in late November, and the scholar program will start in late August. Of course, applicants also need to meet the following conditions:
Having never been to Devcon before,
Never attended Devconnect before,
Able and willing to devote approximately three hours per week over the three-month course to attend online courses, complete assignments, and actively participate in learning, collaborating, and sharing creations.
There is no doubt that EF is in urgent need of fresh blood in terms of external communication nodes. Good wine needs to be hidden in a remote alley, not to mention that ETH’s market price performance is not so impressive nowadays.
EF’s wallet: reduce market crashes, participate in DeFi, and strengthen Defipunk values
After talking about internal and external reforms, the last issue is what everyone is most concerned about - EFs purse management.
Previously, in order to maintain the operation of the organization, EF had to choose to dump ETH in exchange for fiat currency funds, which was controversial and criticized by the community. In response to this, the solution given in EF’s latest announcement is mainly divided into three aspects:
1. EF will comprehensively consider two factors: annual operating expenses and the number of years of operating expense buffer. Currently, annual operating expenses are set at 15% of total finances, retaining a 2.5-year expenditure buffer, and will gradually transition to a long-term expenditure level of 5% (similar to the level of regular donation organizations).
Second, EF will give priority to supporting secure, decentralized, and open-source DeFi protocols, using methods such as wETH staking and stablecoin lending to obtain reasonable returns, and explore Tokenized RWA (tokenized real assets) configuration. In addition, in order to further enhance the transparency of asset spending, EF will have the financial team prepare and maintain specific quarterly and annual reports, and distribute them according to scope and sensitivity.
EF is finally going to say goodbye to the muddled accounts
3. EF will firmly uphold the values of Defipunk, actively support the Defipunk project, encourage KYC-free, self-custodial, privacy-friendly DeFi protocols, and plan to use privacy standards, decentralized UI, and anti-censorship mechanisms as the core evaluation criteria for EF fund deployment. The announcement emphasized: Existing systems often exert subtle pressures, narrow the design space of new DeFi primitives, and restrict privacy-centric innovation. The Ethereum Foundation will resist these pressures. This is also the first time that EF has expressed support for the anti-censorship mechanism in the tone of an official organization. From this point of view, ZK technology will still have great room for development.
Conclusion: ETH price discovery needs more opportunities
As the price of ETH picks up, many bullish views have emerged in the market recently. The US-listed company SharpLink Gaming imitated Strategys strategy of hoarding BTC and reserved ETH, which was also seen by many as a prelude to the rise of ETH prices. However, the above events and factors are more like short-term panaceas to repair expectations. The long-term development of the Ethereum ecosystem and ETH price performance still depends on various internal and external changes of EF, which is the real long-term reassurance.
It is foreseeable that, based on the current planning and progress pace, it will take a long time to verify whether the EF measures are correct or not, and it will take at least 1-2 years.
