The future of Ethereum, with the Foundation at the helm.
Written by: Pzai, Foresight News
On July 10, the Ethereum Foundation released 'The Future of Ecosystem Development', initiating a series of profound structural reforms aimed at addressing long-standing challenges in project support, ecosystem operations, and financial management.
In the new vision statement, the Ethereum Foundation outlines two primary overarching goals: first, to maximize the number of people who directly or indirectly use Ethereum and benefit from its underlying values; second, to maximize the resilience of Ethereum's technology and social infrastructure. The core of this structural reform is to redefine the Foundation's role in the Ethereum ecosystem by introducing four strategic pillars (Acceleration, Amplification, Support, and Long-term Flow), establishing a new governance framework, and reforming its financial management strategy to enhance the ecosystem's scalability, resilience, and decentralization.
New Ecodev Organizational Structure Chart
Ecosystem Acceleration
Previously, some users and developers have accused the Ethereum Foundation of a governance philosophy of long-term 'benign neglect', which has led to a series of ecological splits and a loss of narrative unity. As more and more companies compete to establish crypto reserves, territorial gains in reserve strategies have also become key factors in ecological development. To accelerate the ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation has newly established support modules for segmented directions, including:
Corporate Relations: Supporting enterprises wishing to adopt Ethereum, with the team focusing on verticals such as finance and supply chain, promoting the on-chain tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) like real estate and bonds.
Developer Growth: Attracting and supporting the next generation of Ethereum ecosystem developers. This module is led by Gitcoin's research director Austin Griffith.
Application Support: Accelerating the development of meaningful user-facing applications.
Founder Support: Project-related support at a non-financial level, this module is led by former Consensys front-end technology director Adrian Li.
The amplification of previous ecological acceleration covers work in promotion and ecosystem development, including:
Digital Studio (ethereum.org team): The Ethereum narrative engine, producing content, videos, publications, and unique visualizations rich in narrative to showcase Ethereum's potential.
Strategic Activities: Designing and executing targeted activities.
Omnipresent Ethereum: A team focused on expanding support for local community and center application developers.
EcoDev Automation: Enhancing internal operations with automation and AI-driven tools to enable the team to achieve its goals more effectively.
Ecosystem Support
For a long time, the Ethereum Foundation has been criticized for a lack of transparency, such as in the Ecosystem Support Program (ESP), where the Foundation previously only disclosed the names of funded projects but did not publish specific funding amounts or follow-up updates on project progress. Previously, early Ethereum developer @econoar also criticized the Foundation for being 'cumbersome', 'time-consuming', and for the 'leadership being disconnected from the broader community' when they left. After this, the Foundation also plans to reduce its future operating expenses ratio from 15% to 5% by 2025, gradually approaching the standards of a donation-based organization, and deploy on-chain assets to ensure long-term financial buffer (aiming to maintain 2.5 years of operational cash reserves).
In the new structural reforms, the Foundation's new ESP/funding support program emphasizes more targeted applications and non-financial support, and co-funds important public goods organizations through a strategic funding program to benefit the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Additionally, in the new support structure, Launchpad will assist organizations in addressing operational design, sustainable funding, governance, and other challenges. Support for Launchpad can come from the Foundation, grantees, or derivative products from other ecosystem organizations (similar to Protocol Guild).
In the future, the Ethereum Foundation will also participate in global crypto policy coordination, monitor global issues related to the Ethereum ecosystem, and collaborate with policy organizations around the world to establish lasting relationships with governments and non-governmental organizations. Additionally, as one of the practical sites for blockchain academia, the academic secretariat will actively promote collaboration between Ethereum and universities, professors, and students to advance blockchain technology.
Conclusion
On July 11, Ethereum officially broke through $3,000. During the price surge, ecological development has also been gradually advancing. From this structural transformation, the core goal of the Ethereum Foundation's transformation is to expand the user base and enhance infrastructure resilience. It means that the Foundation will more actively coordinate resources, guide narratives, bridge community differences, and promote the scaling of its application in key areas while maintaining the core values of Ethereum. As the advantages of public chains are gradually being caught up, the Foundation attempts to excavate and shape the next growth engine for the Ethereum ecosystem through systematic support and strategic guidance.
