Vitalik Buterin Signals Shift to ‘Smaller Ship’ at Ethereum Foundation Amid Departures

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin indicated on Sunday that the Ethereum Foundation is transitioning to a leaner, hyper-focused entity, dramatically reducing its operational scope amid a period of internal turbulence.

Buterin addresses a wave of high-profile departures and industry concerns about the nonprofit’s direction said in an extended X-post that the Ethereum Foundation will become “a smaller ship” while doubling down on the protocol’s cypherpunk values.

“The [Ethereum Foundation] chooses to use the remaining resources to pursue longevity across the breadth,” Buterin explains, clarifying that the organization should be seen as “one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes,” rather than as essential to Ethereum’s overall mission.

Buterin’s reflection comes amid a wave of departures from the organization founded more than a decade ago to support protocol development, promote open source research and advocate for the Ethereum network under a nonprofit structure.

Last week, two veterans resigned and expressed a desire to pass the torch. Meanwhile, Dankrad Feist, who was previously one of the Ethereum Foundation’s top researchers, said advocated for the creation of an economically aligned organization to “save Ethereum,” which would be subject to “a board of people who want ETH to go up.”

Since the Ethereum Foundation released a new mandate in March, several members of the organization’s leadership have resigned. The document underlined the group’s lack of interest in increasing the price of Ethereum’s assets, while making several references to the controversial Mrs. Maker NFT project.

Under Bastian Aue, the interim co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, Buterin indicated that the organization is reorienting itself around CROPS, a framework rooted in censorship resistance, openness, privacy and security. Focusing purely on Ethereum’s ability to enable fast and cheap transactions is “a route to mediocrity,” he added.

As the organization’s focus narrows, the Ethereum Foundation will sell less ETH, Buterin said. Despite entering a period of “mild austerity,” the nonprofit’s funding efforts have continued conduct critical researchwhile Buterin himself did that generated attention for the sale of the asset.

Buterin noted that the Ethereum Foundation currently controls about 0.16% of Ethereum’s total supply, an amount valued at $408 million. He added that the Ethereum Foundation debuted with clearly defined technical objectives, completed by 2022, and that the organization was “not designed to be a perpetual steward” of the network.

Nevertheless, Buterin underlined his fame. He said about 90% of his wealth is tied up in the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization, which briefly surpassed all-time highs last year. Buterin added that his “own power” within the Ethereum Foundation “will continue to diminish, which is honestly what I want.”

Buterin said the Ethereum community should focus on creating a demonstrably bug-free environment using improvements in AI, preserving Ethereum’s unique consensus properties and reducing reliance on transaction intermediaries.

Ethereum recently changed hands for around $2,100, down 1.6% in the past week, according to Coin gecko. The asset, valued Monday at about $255.4 billion, has fallen 57% from a record high of $4,950 in August.