Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has unveiled significant leadership adjustments within the Ethereum Foundation to prioritize technical expertise and strengthen collaboration with builders in the Ethereum ecosystem. In a Jan. 18 post on X, Buterin outlined the goals of this overhaul, which include supporting decentralized application developers and championing decentralization, censorship resistance, and privacy. He emphasized that the Ethereum Foundation would steer clear of political lobbying, ideological agendas, or assuming a central role in the ecosystem’s development. These changes follow a challenging year for the Foundation in 2024, during which its spending, roadmap, and personnel decisions were criticized by members of the Ethereum community. The Ethereum Foundation introduced a conflict of interest policy in May 2024 after prominent researchers took paid advisory roles at the EigenLayer Foundation, which oversees the restaking protocol. Justin Drake, a long-time Ethereum Foundation researcher, accepted such a role in May 2024, followed by Dankrad Feist. Drake later stepped down in November 2024, apologizing to the community and committing to avoid advisory roles, investments, or council positions in the future. In March 2024, Ethereum released the Dencun upgrade, which significantly reduced transaction fees for layer-2 networks by up to 99%. This fee reduction led to a rapid increase in Ethereum layer-2 rollups, with L2Beat reporting 55 such networks currently in operation. However, the proliferation of layer-2 solutions sparked concerns among market participants about cannibalizing revenue on the Ethereum base layer. Data from Token Terminal revealed that base layer revenues plummeted by 99% during the summer of 2024 but eventually recovered to pre-Dencun levels by year-end. As Ethereum continues to evolve, these leadership changes aim to foster a more robust and decentralized ecosystem while addressing challenges faced in 2024.
