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 the long-standing challenges in project support, ecosystem operations, and fund management.
In the new vision statement, the Ethereum Foundation outlines two primary overarching goals: first, to maximize the number of people directly or indirectly using Ethereum and benefiting from its underlying values; second, to maximize the resilience of Ethereum's technology and social infrastructure. The core of this structural reform lies in redefining the foundation's role in the Ethereum ecosystem by introducing four strategic pillars (Accelerate, Amplify, Support, and Long-term Unclogging), establishing a new governance framework, and reforming its fund management strategy to enhance the ecosystem's scalability, resilience, and decentralization.
New Ecodev Organizational Structure Diagram
Ecosystem Acceleration
Previously, some users and developers criticized the Ethereum Foundation for its long-term governance philosophy of 'doing nothing', which led to a series of ecosystem divisions and a loss of narrative identity. As more and more companies compete to establish cryptocurrency reserves, territorial gains in reserve strategies have also become a key factor in ecosystem development. In ecosystem acceleration, the Ethereum Foundation has newly established targeted support modules in subfields, including:
Corporate Relations: Providing support to enterprises looking to adopt Ethereum, with the team focusing on vertical fields such as finance and supply chain, promoting 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 Research Director Austin Griffith.
Application Support: Accelerating the development of meaningful user-facing applications.
Founder Support: Project-related support on a non-financial level, this module is led by former Consensys Frontend Tech Director Adrian Li.
The previous amplification of ecosystem acceleration covered work in publicity and ecosystem development, including:
Digital Studio (ethereum.org team): The Ethereum narrative engine, producing narrative-rich content, videos, publications, and unique visualizations to showcase the potential of Ethereum.
Strategic Activities: Designing and executing targeted activities.
Ubiquitous Ethereum: A team focused on expanding support for local community and center application developers.
EcoDev Automation: Enhancing internal operations through automation and AI-driven tools, enabling the team to achieve goals more effectively.
Ecosystem Support
For a long time, the Ethereum Foundation has been criticized for its lack of transparency, for example, 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 criticized the foundation for its 'cumbersome processes', 'time-consuming efforts', and 'disconnection between leadership and the broader community' when he left. Following this, the foundation also reduced the proportion of future operating expenses from 15% to 5% by 2025, gradually approaching the standards of a donation-based organization, and deployed on-chain assets to ensure long-term financial buffers (targeting a 2.5-year operational cash reserve).
In the new structural reform, the foundation's new ESP/funding support program emphasizes more targeted applications and non-financial support, and co-funds important public goods organizations through strategic funding programs, benefiting the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Additionally, in the new support framework, Launchpad will assist organizations in addressing operational design, sustainable funding, governance, and other challenges. Support from 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 cryptocurrency policy coordination, monitor global issues related to the Ethereum ecosystem, and collaborate with policy organizations worldwide to establish ongoing relationships with governments and non-governmental organizations. Additionally, as one of the practical arenas 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. As the price surged, ecosystem development also gradually advanced. From this structural transformation, the core goal of the Ethereum Foundation's transition is to expand the user base and enhance infrastructure resilience. This means the foundation will more actively coordinate resources, guide narratives, bridge community divides, and promote scaling in key application areas while maintaining the core values of Ethereum. As public chain advantages are gradually being chased, the foundation aims to systematically support and strategically guide the Ethereum ecosystem to identify and shape the next growth engine.
