Ethereum is on the verge of a significant breakthrough. The rapid development of zkEVM allows us to rebuild Layer1 to simultaneously support scalability, verifiability, security, and censorship resistance. L2 is continuously strengthening to meet user demands and is eager to double down on using Ethereum as its trust root. In short, the world is ready for the arrival of the world computer.
These significant innovations not only bring great benefits to our users but also allow us to attract more users. This is meaningful: this moment may be the best time for Ethereum to deploy our technology globally and promote our values.
In response, we must rethink the current methods of designing, developing, and managing the protocol. The process of 'delivering the protocol' is highly complex and demands that we proactively respond to needs that are difficult to articulate and even harder to meet. We have a responsibility to apply our skills for the benefit of the broader community.
Executing this mission requires our team, the protocol R&D team within the Ethereum Foundation (EF), to elevate focus and collaboration to a new level. This means we need to invest more in areas where EF has unique domain knowledge and deep expertise that are unparalleled in our ecosystem: from writing mission-critical code to publishing breakthrough research and coordinating large projects.
To support this vision, we are changing our operational approach and repositioning three strategic goals: scaling the L1 layer, scaling the Blob layer, and enhancing user experience. In practice, this means reorganizing our teams and establishing a clear coordination structure around these strategic goals.
This also means that some members of the protocol R&D team will no longer continue working at the Ethereum Foundation. We hope these individuals remain within the Ethereum ecosystem and encourage others who are forming teams to seek them out.
These changes we announce today differ from our previous way of working, but we believe these changes will lead us down a path of greater responsiveness and efficiency. To commemorate the beginning of this new chapter and new structure, we would like to reintroduce the 'Protocol R&D Team' to the world with the new name 'Protocol'.
Strategic initiatives
Over the past year, many of us have felt that we need to better articulate our priorities. In discussions with the community, we collectively thought and identified three ambitious goals that need to be achieved in the short term: scaling L1, scaling Blob, and improving user experience. Successfully achieving these goals is the most valuable work we can do for the community, and we have a responsibility to accomplish it.
Now, we must ensure that these goals can directly drive our attention and resource allocation. Each goal has now been mapped to a strategic plan of Protocol, a shared workspace that brings together our complementary talents. We encourage each team in Protocol to think about how their work supports our execution of these strategic plans.
It is crucial for us to have leaders in our team who are trusted by the community. We are assigning leaders more clearly to accelerate the implementation of strategic initiatives and enhance accountability.
Specifically, the following personnel are responsible for ensuring EF executes each of its strategic goals:
Scaling L1: Tim Beiko & Ansgar Dietrichs, Ethereum will provide sufficient block space on L1 to accommodate all asset issuance, governance, DeFi, and L2 settlement activities without compromising reliability.
Scaling L2: Alex Stokes & Francesco D'Amato, Ethereum will provide the best data access layer. Scaling the throughput of data access on Layer-1 and ensuring it becomes the most attractive product in the entire ecosystem.
Improving user experience: Barnabé Monnot and Josh Rudolf provide a unified, seamless, and secure experience within the Ethereum ecosystem for individuals and institutions.
They will be supported by Dankrad Feist, who will serve as the strategic advisor across all fields and the leader of the projects designed to drive these goals.
Team
We need to mobilize the capabilities of all Protocol members more than ever to solve problems. Quickly transforming research results into prototypes and then into production means we need tighter collaboration and feedback loops. Over the past few years, we have seen more communication bridges built between teams, leading to tangible results. Upholding a shared vision, we must ensure that our common home has an excellent working environment.
Maintaining open collaboration with every member of Protocol requires us to hold common expectations for each other and to trust that each of us can deliver results at the highest level. Team leaders will be responsible for ensuring their members meet our high technical standards and continue to grow, constantly surpassing themselves.
Protocol is now a more united and streamlined organization with more focused teams.
Community
The protocol itself cannot accomplish all tasks. Our ecosystem benefits from the efforts of many other core R&D teams that bolster our efforts and bring functionalities to life. Our duty is not to replace these teams but to set high standards for ourselves in collaboration with them.
The protocol is driving us to reconfigure major governance forums and introduce new governance forums. It is crucial to continue sending the right signals and translating them into action.
We are looking for new members to join us in our efforts to become a part of the broader Ethereum core development community. We believe that the positions of user experience lead and performance engineering lead are crucial for helping us address the real issues faced by Ethereum users. Additionally, we welcome outstanding applicants who are passionate about our mission to reach out to us through our general application form.
So, let us take action together to deliver the protocol.
