Is Vitalik Cementing Sole Control Over the Ethereum Foundation?

Vitalik Buterin recently said the Ethereum Foundation is primed for significant changes
Who doesn’t agree with the new goals is welcome to set up a new organization, he added
The community is loudly demanding the resignation of the EF Executive Director.

Over the past weekend, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and one of the most influential people in the entire crypto industry, told his X following that the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation, as well as the Foundation’s goals, are being reworked.

In one of the follow-up tweets, he also said that he is “the one deciding the new EF leadership team,” and that whoever doesn’t agree with EF’s new heading is “welcome to start their own orgs.”

What’s behind these strong statements, and is Vitalik taking sole control over the foundation? Let’s find out.

What is Going On?

The bull market has been in full swing for more than half a year now, and while Bitcoin has been hitting new all-time-highs every few weeks, Ethereum hasn’t kept up.

The second-largest network, and arguably the second-most-popular one hasn’t been able to hit its all-time-high this bull run, which made the community rightfully nervous.

Pivotal to the development and growth of the network is the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization established by Buterin and other co-founders back in 2014. Its goal, besides supporting the development and growth of the blockchain, is to also provide funding, research, and community support.

Two key figures are Vitalik Buterin, and Aya Miyaguchi, who’s assumed the role of Executive Director.

What did Vitalik Say?

In a tweet posted last Saturday, Buterin said that the team is “currently in the process of large changes to EF leadership structure, which has been ongoing for close to a year.”

The goals of these changes, he added, are to improve the level of technical expertise within EF leadership, improve two-way communications and ties between EF leadership and the ecosystem actors, bring in fresh talent, better support app builders, and more.

Buterin further explained that the EF is not there to “execute some kind of ideological pivot from feminized wef soyboy mentality to bronze age mindset”, to “start aggressively lobbying regulators and powerful political figures, especially in the USA,” or “to become an arena for vested interests.”

“These things aren’t what EF does and this isn’t going to change. People seeking a different vision are welcome to start their own orgs,” he concluded.

Putting it Into Context

There are a few things needing explanation here.

First – the EF being an “arena for vested interest” could be a callback to May 2024. That’s when we learned that EF researchers Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist took paid advisory roles at EigenLayer Foundation. In response, the EF implemented a conflict-of-interest policy, while Drake resigned from the role and apologized to the community.

The comment that he’s “the one deciding the new EF leadership team” is most likely in response to the community’s recent attacks against Miyaguchi. The calls for her resignation have been quite loud on X, as some members of the community identified her as the sole person responsible for Ethereum’s lagging behind Bitcoin.

Buterin responded to calls for her resignation by saying, “No. This is not how this game works.

The person deciding the new EF leadership team is me. One of the goals of the ongoing reform is to give the EF a “proper board”, but until that happens it’s me.”

“If you “keep the pressure on” (for Miyaguchi to resign), then you are creating an environment that is actively toxic to top talent. Some of Ethereum’s best devs have been messaging me recently, expressing their disgust with the social media environment that people like you are creating. YOU ARE MAKING MY JOB HARDER.

And you are decreasing the chance I have any interest whatsoever in doing “what you want,” Buterin concluded.

Is This Buterin’s Hostile Takeover?

It doesn’t look like it. It seems like Buterin is protecting Ethereum’s assets from the community’s negativity, while trying to make changes.

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