Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to rising criticisms of the Ethereum Foundation’s position in the Ethereum ecosystem, pushing again towards critics who need the group to take a extra energetic position in supporting token costs and advertising and marketing.
Buterin mentioned the Foundation will proceed to give attention to selling censorship-resistance, open supply software program code, long-range analysis, cybersecurity, and decentralization of the Ethereum Protocol, as outlined in its mandate. He said:
“EF just isn’t a ‘heart of Ethereum’, reasonably EF is ‘one node, with an outlined goal, alongside different nodes’. We have now at all times mentioned that the EF must be the latter, however many in the Ethereum ecosystem, and even inside the EF, needed us to be the former.
The Ethereum Foundation’s mandate was printed in March 2026. Supply: Ethereum Foundation
“Now, we’re taking motion to make sure that we will likely be the latter,” he continued, including that the Ethereum Foundation seeks to strengthen Ethereum’s cybersecurity and code base however not essentially compete with high-throughput chains or scale to 1 million transactions per second.
The feedback comply with a number of giant ETH holders selling their entire ETH position and high-profile departures from the Ethereum Foundation, as the present worth of the cryptocurrency, about $2,094, sits greater than 50% beneath its all-time excessive of almost $5,000 reached in August 2025.
“The EF has solely about 0.16% of all ETH,” he mentioned, noting that it is not uncommon for different foundations to carry 10-50% of their native tokens.
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Below strain amid falling token worth
“I feel Ethereum’s authentic sin was not contemplating tokenomics with each transfer it made out of Dencun on,” cryptocurrency journalist Laura Shin said.
The Dencun improve was a significant protocol replace launched in March 2024, which considerably diminished community charges for layer-2 transactions and led to a subsequent collapse in Ethereum’s base layer income.
Charges on the Ethereum layer-1 blockchain community fell considerably after the Dencun improve in March 2024. Supply: Token Terminal
Most traders “don’t wish to imagine in one thing that’s not additionally placing up factors on the scoreboard,” Shin mentioned about ETH.
Buterin mentioned on Sunday that the Foundation would give attention to “longevity” and stretch its funds to finance analysis, that means it could promote much less ETH in the future.
In Could, the Foundation unstaked 21,270 ETH from the Lido liquid staking platform, as half of its treasury technique.
Unstaking ETH means these holdings will now not generate yield for the Ethereum Foundation, however it isn’t a affirmation that the group will promote these tokens.
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