Vitalik正親手「拆掉」以太坊基金會

Original author: Changan I Biteye content team

Over the past year, Ethereum has faced considerable challenges. On one side, it is being challenged by high-performance blockchains; on the other, it faces repeated community criticism for being too slow.

Early this morning, Vitalik published a lengthy article directly addressing the ultimate anxiety of the entire Web3 industry, re-answering a question critical to Ethereum's survival:

What will Ethereum ultimately rely on to win?

Is it higher TPS, faster transactions, stronger marketing, or the more difficult-to-articulate but more long-term aspects: decentralization, privacy, censorship resistance, and security?

1. The EF Is Not Vitalik's "One-Man Show"

In the eyes of many users and institutions, the EF sounds like the "official" headquarters. Coupled with the immense aura of Vitalik himself, outsiders easily equate the EF, Vitalik, and Ethereum itself. However, this runs counter to the core belief of 'decentralization' that Ethereum upholds.

In this article, Vitalik clearly states that the EF board does not operate solely by his word, and he holds no special privileges internally. Currently, a significant amount of transformation work is executed by Aya Miyaguchi, allowing him to focus more purely on the technology itself.

The EF board comprises more than just Vitalik, and he does not possess powers different from other members. Aya Miyaguchi is responsible for executing many transformation tasks, while he primarily engages with technical issues.

Therefore, the EF's goal is not to make itself a larger center of Ethereum, but rather to shrink its own sphere of power: deepen its work in areas it should handle, and delegate matters it shouldn't monopolize to others within the ecosystem.

2. If Ethereum Becomes the Next Google, It Will Have Truly Lost

Vitalik stated that since 2025, the EF has made significant improvements in execution, efficiency, and focus.

Recently, external criticism of the EF mainly centered on being "too slow," "lacking execution," and "not paying enough attention to applications and business partnerships." So, after 2025, the EF began operating more efficiently and focusing on specific goals.

However, Vitalik noted that by this year, the problems he perceives have changed.

He often encounters criticism: Vitalik and the EF constantly emphasize decentralization, privacy protection, and censorship resistance for Ethereum, yet the EF's actual actions fail to reflect these values.

Previously, the concern was that the EF wasn't moving fast enough. Now, Vitalik is more worried that if the EF merely becomes faster, better at marketing, and more like a standard tech company, Ethereum might ultimately relegate its foundational values to a secondary position.

To illustrate this, Vitalik used Google as an analogy.

Google also had strong idealism in its early days, like "Don't be evil." However, as the company grew, it increasingly resembled a standard large tech corporation, needing to consider commercial interests, regulatory pressure, platform power, and user data.

3. The EF's New Positioning: Not the Center of Ethereum, but a Node in the Ecosystem

Vitalik redefined the EF's positioning: The EF is not the center of Ethereum, but a node within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Many people previously viewed the EF as the core of Ethereum. When problems arose in the Ethereum ecosystem, people would ask why the EF didn't fix them.

But Vitalik emphasized this time: The EF cannot do everything, nor should it do everything.

Vitalik also mentioned that the EF currently holds only about 0.16% of ETH, even less than some large ETH holders. In contrast, many other blockchain foundations may hold 10% to 50% of their native tokens.

This means the EF lacks sufficient funds and organizational capacity and should not act as the permanent manager of Ethereum.

Therefore, the EF will use its resources more carefully, directing funds and talent towards the most fundamental, long-term, and hardest-to-commercialize issues that are crucial for Ethereum.

4. The EF's Core Mission: CROPS

A key term repeatedly mentioned in Vitalik's article is CROPS.

Simply put, CROPS refers to the aspects Ethereum values most: Censorship resistance, Resistance to control, Openness, Privacy, and Security.

This is also the direction clarified in the EF's mandate this year: The EF's mission is not to build itself into a larger ecosystem company, nor simply to pursue more users, higher revenue, or a higher coin price, but to help Ethereum uphold these foundational promises.

So, Vitalik is essentially further drawing boundaries this time: The EF will not expand around 'everything beneficial to Ethereum,' but will focus more narrowly on CROPS.

The EF takes responsibility for safeguarding the most fundamental, long-term, and hardest-to-commercialize aspects. Other tasks like applications, marketing, ecosystem growth, asset support, and institutional partnerships should be undertaken by more external teams, capital, and community organizations.

5. Cannot Chase Only TPS, Otherwise It Will Slide into Mediocrity

Vitalik stated that Ethereum must feel impressive. However, he doesn't believe this prominence solely comes from 250ms latency, 1 million TPS, or faster transaction confirmations.

Many new blockchains are challenging Ethereum with higher TPS, lower latency, and cheaper fees. Chains like Solana, BNB Chain, Hyperliquid, and some new L1s primarily emphasize being faster, smoother, and better suited for trading.

Vitalik is not denying the importance of scaling. Ethereum certainly needs to improve performance, and directions like L2, state scaling, and lower slot times will continue to be pursued.

Because if it's solely about speed, Ethereum cannot always be the absolute best. There will always be chains willing to sacrifice more decentralization for higher TPS, lower latency, and better short-term user experience.

If Ethereum follows this same path, it might ultimately become just a 'slightly more decentralized high-performance chain,' which is not Ethereum's goal.

What Vitalik wants to emphasize is that Ethereum's true strengths should be censorship resistance, resistance to control, openness, privacy, and security.

Speed is certainly important, but it is not everything Ethereum is about.

Ethereum's truly irreplaceable value should be: continuing to improve performance while still upholding these more difficult, long-term foundational capabilities.

6. Vitalik Points Out Three Technical Directions

After explaining why Ethereum cannot solely chase TPS, Vitalik outlined several technical directions he considers more important.

1. A Provably Bug-Free Ethereum

The first direction is formal verification.

Simply put, it involves using more rigorous, almost mathematical proof-like methods to verify the correctness of the Ethereum protocol, clients, and related code.

Previously, 'proving Ethereum has no bugs' seemed nearly impossible. Blockchain systems are highly complex, with extensive interactions between code, clients, consensus mechanisms, and smart contracts.

However, Vitalik believes that with the development of AI-assisted formal verification, this task is becoming more realistic.

This also indicates that he doesn't view AI merely as a hot application-layer topic, but focuses more on whether AI can help make Ethereum's underlying security stronger.

2. Available Chain Consensus

The second direction is consensus security.

Vitalik mentioned that Ethereum should possess a specific capability: even under poor network conditions or when some nodes fail, Ethereum should not easily rely on human coordination, social consensus, or hard forks to resolve issues.

He believes that for some chains, recovering from large-scale node outages through coordination among the project team, validators, and community might be acceptable. However, this dependency is dangerous for systems like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Zcash, which emphasize censorship resistance and neutrality.

Once a system requires coordination by a few to recover, it exposes centralization risks.

3. Reducing Intermediary Dependence

The third direction is reducing reliance on intermediaries.

Currently, many smart contract wallets and privacy protocols still depend on intermediate services like RPCs, third-party servers, transaction relays, and packing services to submit transactions to the chain.

While these intermediary services can improve user experience, they also create problems.

For example, if an intermediary service refuses to process your transaction, it might not get through. If a wallet needs to send data to a third-party server, your privacy could be exposed.

Vitalik believes this situation is inconsistent with the direction Ethereum should take.

Therefore, he mentions efforts like FOCIL, EIP-8141, 7701, and Kohaku, all fundamentally addressing the same problem: allowing users to interact more directly with Ethereum, rather than relying on a host of intermediary services.

7. ETH Asset Brought to the Forefront, but EF Won't Become an ETH-Pumping Organization

Vitalik also uncharacteristically placed the ETH asset in a very important position.

He stated that, from a financial perspective, Ethereum's most valuable product is ETH. Ethereum currently secures approximately $250 billion worth of ETH.

He also mentioned that nearly 90% of his personal net worth is in ETH, with the remainder mostly in on-chain fiat currencies, already allocated to open-source biotechnology, software, and hardware projects.

He acknowledges that ETH is Ethereum's most important asset. Ethereum's security, censorship resistance, privacy, and openness will ultimately influence ETH's long-term value.

However, matters related to ETH's value, such as marketing, institutional communication, asset narrative, and ecosystem growth, are more suitable for teams and organizations outside the EF to undertake.

Conclusion

The most noteworthy aspect of Vitalik's article is not that the EF will shrink or sell less ETH, but that he has re-answered a more fundamental question:

What does Ethereum ultimately want to become?

The direction he provided: A smaller EF, a more focused Ethereum, and more roles assumed by others in the ecosystem.

This path may not sound sexy or necessarily be the most pleasing to the short-term market. However, it re-explains why Ethereum remains special: It aims to win not just on speed, cost, and transaction experience, but on the more difficult-to-censor, harder-to-capture, more privacy-focused, more secure, and more open foundational capabilities.

The EF might become a smaller ship in the future, but Vitalik hopes it guards what is most essential and should not be diluted within Ethereum.