- Vitalik Buterin announced leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation, focusing on decentralization, privacy, and technical collaboration.
- Ethereum's Dencun upgrade reduced layer-2 fees, sparking network growth but raising concerns about base-layer revenue cannibalization.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has announced significant changes to the Ethereum Foundation's leadership to enhance its focus on technical expertise and improve collaboration with the Ethereum ecosystem.
In a Jan. 18 social media post, Buterin detailed the Foundation's renewed priorities, emphasizing decentralization, privacy, and censorship resistance.
We are indeed currently in the process of large changes to EF leadership structure, which has been ongoing for close to a year. Some of this has already been executed on and made public, and some is still in progress.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 18, 2025
What we're trying to achieve is primarily the following…
Buterin clarified that the Foundation would refrain from political lobbying or taking a central role in Ethereum's development, ensuring its primary focus remains on supporting decentralized application developers.
This announcement follows a challenging year for the Ethereum Foundation, which faced criticism in 2024 for its spending, roadmap decisions, and personnel controversies.
In May 2024, the Foundation implemented a conflict of interest policy after prominent researchers, including Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist, took paid advisory roles at the EigenLayer Foundation, which oversees Ethereum's restaking protocol.
Drake later apologized to the Ethereum community in November 2024, stepping down from his advisory role and pledging not to accept similar positions in the future.
“I recognize the need to uphold community trust and avoid conflicts,” Drake stated at the time.
The Ethereum ecosystem also experienced dramatic changes in 2024 due to the Dencun upgrade, launched in March, which reduced transaction fees on Ethereum's layer-2 networks by up to 99%. This led to a surge in the number of layer-2 rollups, with L2Beat reporting 55 active networks.
However, the proliferation of layer-2 solutions sparked concerns among some market participants, who argued these networks were diverting revenue from Ethereum's base layer. Data from Token Terminal shows Ethereum base layer revenues dropped by 99% during the summer but recovered to pre-Dencun levels by year-end.
Edited by Harshajit Sarmah
