Setting 'Suicidal' Rules for Itself: What is the Ethereum Foundation Aiming For?

Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

On the evening of March 13, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) Board of Directors released a mission statement titled "EF Mandate".

When you open this mission statement, you might doubt if you've entered the wrong scene—it's filled with stars, sprites, wizards, and a layout reminiscent of anime posters. Beneath this cool exterior lies the current "ideological framework" of the Ethereum ecosystem.

TL;DR

• EF's Core Positioning: A Guardian, Not a Ruler. The EF's ultimate goal is to pass the "Walkaway Test"—even if the Ethereum Foundation were to disband tomorrow, the Ethereum network should still function perfectly.
• CROPS is the Non-Negotiable Baseline: Any technical development must satisfy Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, and Security. These four attributes are inseparable; no development priority can override them.
• EF's Operating Philosophy: The Foundation does less so Ethereum can be more resilient. As the ecosystem matures, the Ethereum Foundation will gradually decentralize its influence.
• What It Won't Do: It will not be a "kingmaker," a rating agency, a hype-driven marketing organization, nor will it encourage treating Ethereum as a "giant casino."
• Ultimate Vision: Looking ahead 1000 years, to provide a "digital sanctuary" free from exploitation by power, capital, AI, or even family.

What Problem is Ethereum Trying to Solve?

EF believes there are two infrastructure-level necessities in the digital age: controlling one's own data, identity, and assets (Self-Sovereignty), and collaborating with others without anyone being able to "cut you off" (Sovereignty-Preserving Coordination).

Pursuing only the first point, running a local application is enough; pursuing only the second, the traditional internet suffices. Ethereum's unique value lies in achieving both simultaneously.

The statement contains a passage: Ethereum exists so that no one can "rug" you—whether it's a government, company, institution, or AI.

Centered on this goal, EF introduced an acronym: CROPS. This term appears 32 times in the statement.

• Censorship Resistance: No one can prevent you from doing legal things; external pressure is countered by cryptographic neutrality.
• Open Source & Free: All code and rules are transparent; there are no hidden black boxes.
• Privacy: Your data belongs to you, not the platform. You decide what information to share and with whom.
• Security: Protecting both the system and users from technical failures, coercion, and other harms.

These four attributes are defined in the document as an "inseparable whole," the highest-priority baseline that cannot be compromised for any reason.

EF's stance is clear: It would rather move slower but get these things right from day one. Because once abandoned, reclaiming them is nearly impossible.

What Does the Foundation Do? What Doesn't It Do?

EF is making "making itself unnecessary" its ultimate success metric.

There's a term in the document called the "walkaway test": If EF disappeared tomorrow, could Ethereum continue to run and evolve on its own? EF's goal is to make the answer "yes."

Therefore, EF is practicing a philosophy of "subtractive development": focusing on critical tasks that no one else in the ecosystem can or is willing to do—core protocol upgrades, long-term technical research, public security. Once a domain can be taken over by the community, EF hands it over, further reducing its relative influence.

Simultaneously, EF has drawn up a long list of "will not do" items, reading like a solemn disclaimer: not a company, not a kingmaker, not a certification body, not a product studio, not a marketing company, not a boss, not a government agency, not a casino, not an opportunist.

How Will EF Decide When There's No Clear Answer?

The previous sections covered many principles: CROPS, self-sovereignty, subtractive philosophy. But what happens when faced with concrete problems? This chapter provides the answer.

It's akin to the Foundation's "decision-making algorithm": when two paths lie ahead, how to choose without betraying the original intent?

• When choosing a technical solution, pick the one that "won't create a chokehold later," even if it's slower now. The example in the document is transaction propagation: one solution performs well but relies on a private relay network (whitelist-based), another is decentralized but progresses slowly. EF's choice would likely be the latter, because once the former is implemented, "decentralizing it later" is unlikely to happen.
• When designing or evaluating proposals, don't just look at the immediate layer; consider the impact on other layers. Some solutions might seem fine in isolation, even aligning with CROPS principles, but viewed within the entire ecosystem, they might create new problems elsewhere. Don't solve one problem and create ten more.
• User safety is important, but don't make decisions for users. Only provide users with tools for self-defense. Absolutely avoid "paternalistic" restrictions. Don't let anyone use "protecting users" as a pretext to剥夺 users' right to choose. For example, some wallets might enable "security mode" by default, secretly blocking certain contracts, redirecting users to specific platforms, or even using opaque AI to judge "risky operations" while secretly collecting user behavior—all practices the Foundation opposes. True protection means giving users verifiable filtering tools and publicly-ruled black/white lists; whatever the tool, it should be privacy-preserving by default, including AI components.
• If intermediaries are unavoidable? Lower barriers and provide exits. If certain areas currently cannot bypass intermediaries, then lower the entry barriers to foster full market competition. Simultaneously, users must have a viable, practical "intermediary-free" alternative.
• When choosing which teams to support, look not at social clout but at actual technical choices. Many projects pay lip service to CROPS but hide closed-source core components, implement whitelist restrictions, or steer users down fixed paths in their actual designs—these require vigilance.

The Ideal is Plump, Reality is Bony

This statement is powerfully written, but the harsh questioning of reality never stops.

Does this document represent a community-wide consensus, or the ideals of a few authors? If EF's personnel changes, does it still hold? Who oversees its implementation?

More practical questions:

• EF's operational funding heavily relies on its ETH holdings. Low ETH prices compress the budget. "Not caring about price" is a spiritual discipline, not a financial reality.
• CROPS rules are ideal rules, but the world doesn't operate by CROPS.
• What most users truly care about is: speed, cost, and usability.
• EF insists on "being fully CROPS from day one," but could this cause Ethereum to fall behind more "pragmatic" competitors in user experience and commercialization?
• How are EF's "do's" and "don'ts" measured? How is accountability enforced? How is "coordination" effectiveness judged?

Community in Uproar: Punk Ideals vs. Disconnection from Reality

Within 24 hours of the statement's release, community feedback has been polarized:

Critics:

• Eigen Labs researcher Kydo stated bluntly that EF's current direction is a 180-degree turn, overturning the previous "pragmatic path" that supported stablecoins, institutional entry, and RWA, marginalizing the most marketable applications today.
• Forward Ind. Chairman complained: "They want to build what they want, not what you want"—accusing EF of building only according to idealism, ignoring community and market demands.
• Hazeflow founder Pavel Paramonov called it "yet another pile of ideological nonsense," failing to clarify Ethereum's specific direction going forward.

Supporters:

• Namefi founder Zainan Victor Zhou believes this is a constraint on the EF organization itself, not a restriction on the entire ecosystem.
• Columbia Business School professor Omid Malekan pointed out that CROPS is precisely the foundation of Ethereum's leadership in finance—it provides genuine "access rights + verifiability + property rights protection."

Facing the controversy, Vitalik personally clarified: This statement "is not a surprise to many people" and reflects the direction EF has been contemplating for the past few months. EF only acts as Ethereum's guardian; the rest is left to the broader ecosystem—this is the starting point of a new chapter.

The statement concludes with an Italian phrase: "E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle"—from Dante's *Divine Comedy: Inferno*, literally meaning "And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars."

EF also created a meme image of a "SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE," stating: "Should the Foundation fail to uphold its solemn commitment to Ethereum, let it reap the consequences and end itself."

EF likens itself to a traveler passing through hell, enduring the trials and skepticism of reality, yet moving forward towards the stars of "digital freedom." Of course, time will tell.