Crisis in Ethereum Foundation: Internal divisions threaten the future of the Internet

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Looking Ethereum Foundation The fiercest internal criticism in years, with eight people resigning since January 2026, in the middle of a difficult public debate about whether the non-profit from Switzerland still has a clear purpose within the environment that helped build it. This conflict is no longer a private whisper, but has now become a governance issue that plays a major role in networks with billions of assets.

What distinguishes this moment is not only the departure of the cards, but the conflict of opposing visions on the work that the organization should do. Ethereumand what the network should be in the future.

The Ethereum Foundation: Beyond the Struggle for Authority

The only thing that happened was a document of “positions” published by the Foundation on March 13, 2026, which was described in it as “a part of the rules, a part, a guide.” This document clearly defines the role of the Foundation as the administrator and not the “parent, governor, or executive” of the Ethereum network.

The document deepened an old dilemma: Should the organization focus on research into government products, or evolve into a more sustainable organization that can compete in the growing blockchain industry?

The series of resignations intensified criticism that had been building for months. In a sharp comment on the Unchained podcast with Laura Chen, long-time Ethereum supporter Zach Cole said, “This organization is out of touch with reality. They are supporting hippo operations in Asia and doing things that no one in the world cares about except Vitalik and his small team.” Cole explained the risks simply: “Ethereum is no longer a startup, it’s a mature, robust ecosystem. There are billions, even trillions, of dollars at stake, and people’s lives depend on it.”

The former researcher of the Foundation Dankrad Fest went further, publicly floating the idea of ​​creating a separate organization of $ 1 billion associated with Ethereum to improve the execution and capture of valuables, which would represent a direct challenge to the Foundation’s model of public goods. At this time, the internal policy of the organization was also changing, as the leadership of the new protocol team was tasked with raising the gas limit to 200 million, improving the distribution of developers, and pushing zkEVM to 128-bit security guaranteed.

For his part, Vitalik Buterin responded last week in a lengthy statement, arguing that the opposition had misunderstood what the foundation wanted. “This organization is not an ‘Ethereum hub,’ but ‘a single node, with a specific purpose, together with other points,'” Buterin wrote. He also described the Foundation’s current focus on its core values ​​— Resisting Surveillance, Openness, Privacy, and Security (known internally as CROPS) — as a deliberate decision, saying: “The Foundation is choosing to use its remaining resources to continue and not expand.”

Why Ethereum Foundation Governance Affects ETH Investors

The process of transferring conflict from the industry to the market is unknown but it is real. Developers’ opinion is what drives the trustworthiness of the protocol, and it is this trust that creates institutional trust, which makes ETH a currency and a development bet.

Suffering ETH is already under price pressureUncertainty about authority adds to the burden of loyalty that is difficult to quantify but easy to feel in the context of environmental development.

Chris Poulos, president of Dromos Labs – leading the programs of the decentralized Aerodrome platform on the Base network (the second layer of Ethereum) – accepted the right to criticize while protecting the remaining value of the base, that: “The main criticism that the instructions were unclear and the hackers were dirty, the work and the opposition, and the concern and the layer. many things to many parties at the same time. His defense of the group was based on its neutrality: “Having a party silence when the competing parties need to agree on good practices deserves more praise than they sometimes do.”

This development cannot be directly marketed as an ETF approval or forced action, but the continuous uncertainty of the business model remains important in the network where the competitive advantage depends on the communication of changes, the integrity of the road map, and the maintenance of the software, especially as the competitive layer (L1) of the Ethereum network is strong.

A note Crisis in Ethereum Foundation: Internal divisions threaten the future of the Internet appeared for the first time Cryptonews Arabic.

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