V神 responds to the resignation wave: The Ethereum Foundation will become smaller, more enduring, and focus more on CROPS rather than price

In response to the Ethereum Foundation's wave of departures and criticism of ignoring the market, the God stated that the foundation will scale down and reduce token sales, focusing on technological upgrades and the "CROPS" attributes, while Ethereum assets and market expansion will be handed over to external organizations.

Ethereum Foundation faces departures and negative reviews, Vitalik personally responds

Recently, the Ethereum Foundation has experienced a wave of departures, with at least 8 senior contributors leaving or announcing plans to leave by 2026, including former co-Executive Director Tomasz Stanczak. Industry figures such as crypto media Unchained reporter Laura Shin have also publicly criticized the foundation for neglecting tokenomics, leading to talent loss.

Faced with personnel upheaval and criticism, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin issued a lengthy statement today (5/25), outlining the foundation’s restructuring direction, resource allocation, and long-term technical vision.

becoming smaller and more sustainable, reducing token sales

Vitalik emphasized that the Ethereum Foundation is just a node within the ecosystem, currently holding about 0.16% of the total ETH supply, far below the common holdings of other blockchain foundations. The initial phased tasks of the foundation were completed in 2022, and moving forward, it will scale down and focus resources on longevity.

The foundation will reduce ETH sales and focus on promoting core CROPS attributes such as censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security, and will delegate some tasks to external capital and organizations, ensuring a more opinionated and long-term presence.

Image source: Vitalik Buterin/X Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responds to recent foundation departures and negative comments (partial screenshot)

rejecting performance race, focusing on technological upgrades

Ethereum will continue to focus on technological upgrades and reject pure performance competitions. Vitalik believes that Ethereum should possess impressive qualities; simply pursuing high throughput and low latency leads to mediocrity.

He outlined three main technical priorities:

• First, using AI-assisted formal verification to create a bug-free Ethereum network;
• Second, maintaining high fault tolerance and chain consensus resistant to 49% attacks;
• Third, promoting decentralized transaction sending, including projects like FOCIL, EIP-8141, and Kohaku, to address vulnerabilities caused by over-reliance on third-party relays for smart contracts and privacy protocols.

ETH assets and market, to be handed over to external organizations

Vitalik agrees that ETH is the most financially valuable product of Ethereum, and advancing the aforementioned technical attributes will be beneficial for ETH assets in the long run.

However, developing ETH-related business and market expansion work exceeds the scope of the Ethereum Foundation, and this part needs to be handled by other external organizations with more resources. The foundation will consider how to provide initial support to these external entities.

Ethereum Foundation former developer Dankrad Feist has proposed raising $1 billion to establish an independent initiative organization to better align with the development of ETH assets.

Has the Ethereum Foundation neglected the capital markets?

Recent negative comments about the Ethereum Foundation mainly relate to neglecting capital markets and the impact of the Cancun upgrade.

Laura Shin pointed out that since the Cancun upgrade, Ethereum’s decision-making has not incorporated tokenomics, overly emphasizing ideology while neglecting capital markets and price performance, leading to dissatisfaction among the community and investors. External organizations’ involvement can help with business expansion but is not a fundamental solution for token operation.

Although the Cancun upgrade significantly reduced transaction fees on Layer 2 networks, it also caused a subsequent collapse in Ethereum’s base layer revenue.

Additionally, frequent personnel changes within the Ethereum Foundation, with the new co-Executive Director Bastian Aue having little public record, have eroded community confidence.

Laura Shin believes that Ethereum’s competitors are actively capturing market share, while the Foundation remains relatively passive. This attitude will benefit competing chains. Upholding principles while also focusing on price and ecosystem growth should be pursued simultaneously.

Ethereum developer Chen Pin, with ten years of experience, recently published an analysis stating that middle-layer applications in the blockchain industry have almost completely vanished. In the future, the industry will trend toward two extremes:

• One is a niche focused on decentralization and addressing public issues with a cryptopunk spirit;
• The other is fully tool-oriented, positioning blockchain in stablecoins, RWA (real-world assets), and enterprise applications to compete directly with existing solutions.

Related report: "The chain is still there, but people are gone! Ethereum veteran: Middle layer applications have vanished, only sky and earth remain in the future"

How Ethereum’s faith can turn slogans into reality

Although Vitalik leans toward being a promoter of CROPS principles, the actual user experience of Ethereum still needs improvement.

Max, editor of Crypto City, pointed out that Ethereum still faces issues such as high transaction fees, fragmented cross-chain processes, and heavy reliance on centralized services. Concepts must be translated into tangible product experiences; formal verification and decentralized transaction mechanisms must be practically implemented for Ethereum’s faith to move from slogans to reality.

After the foundation scales down, the vacant space may be filled by community governance, but this could also lead to a narrative vacuum and factionalism. Moving forward, the Ethereum ecosystem needs more people willing to take on responsibilities for public infrastructure, market education, and application development.

Further reading:
The busiest quarter in history! Ethereum’s first quarter of 2026 surpasses 200 million transactions, why hasn’t the price followed?