Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin signaled on Sunday that the Ethereum Foundation is transitioning into a leaner, hyper-focused entity—dramatically narrowing its operational scope amid a period of internal turbulence.
Addressing a wave of high-profile departures and industry anxieties over the nonprofit's direction, Buterin said in a lengthy post on X that the Ethereum Foundation will become "a smaller ship" while doubling down on the protocol's cypherpunk values.
"The [Ethereum Foundation] is choosing to use its remaining resources to pursue longevity over breadth," Buterin explained, clarifying that the organization should be viewed as "one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes," rather than as essential to Ethereum's overall mission.
Buterin's remarks come amid a wave of departures from the organization, which was established more than a decade ago to support protocol development, foster open-source research, and advocate for the Ethereum network under a nonprofit structure.
Last week, two veterans resigned, expressing a desire to pass the torch. Meanwhile, Dankrad Feist, who previously served as one of the Ethereum Foundation's top researchers, 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 underscored the group's lack of interest in boosting the price of Ethereum's native asset, while making several references to the controversial Milady Maker NFT project.
Under Bastian Aue, the Ethereum Foundation's interim co-executive director, Buterin indicated that the organization is refocusing itself around CROPS, a framework rooted in censorship resistance, openness, privacy, and security. Focusing purely on Ethereum's ability to facilitate 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 to draw scrutiny, while Buterin himself has generated attention for selling the asset.
Buterin noted that the Ethereum Foundation currently controls around 0.16% of Ethereum's total supply, a sum valued at $408 million. He added that the Ethereum Foundation debuted with clear-cut technical goals, which were completed in 2022, and the organization "was not designed to be an eternal steward" of the network.
Nonetheless, Buterin underscored his personal exposure to the asset, saying around 90% of his net worth is tied up in the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization, which briefly surpassed all-time highs last year. He also added that his "own power" within the Ethereum Foundation will "continue to decrease, which is honestly what I want."
Buterin said Ethereum's community should be focused on creating a provably bug-free environment using advancements in AI, preserving Ethereum's unique consensus properties, and reducing a reliance on transaction middlemen.
Ethereum recently changed hands around $2,100, a 1.6% decrease over the past week, according to CoinGecko. The asset, which was valued at around $255.4 billion on Monday, has plunged 57% from an all-time high of $4,950 reached in August.
Why it matters
The Ethereum Foundation controls $408 million in ETH while operating under what Buterin described as 'mild austerity' and a commitment to sell less ETH going forward, making the scale of its holdings directly relevant to how it funds future work.
Buterin stated that the Foundation's original technical goals were completed in 2022 and that it 'was not designed to be an eternal steward' of the network—providing the Foundation's own stated rationale for why it is narrowing its mission now.
Buterin's disclosure that roughly 90% of his personal net worth is held in ETH offers context for his public commentary on the Foundation's direction and its reduced ETH sales policy.
