It is rumored to be slowly evolving, with much discussion about Ethereum () in the crypto community recently, but prices remain at bearish lows.
On April 19, one of the founders of Bankless and a crypto culture manager – David Hoffman said that "The Ethereum ship is slowly turning."
He added that the process started more than six months ago and changes are already observable, highlighting six areas of change that Ethereum is experiencing.
The project faced a tough time earlier this year with leadership issues at the Ethereum Foundation, developers jumping ship, and record levels of FUD being spread.
Is Ethereum Evolving?
After focusing on research for years, Ethereum now realizes the need to adapt in response to emerging competitive pressures around 2021, said Hoffman.
He added that the Ethereum community is actively addressing this issue through aggressive layer-1 scaling, with plans to increase the gas limit tenfold over the next two years.
There is also a shift from protocol-first thinking to product-first thinking, with new leadership roles.
And the Ethereum Foundation is taking a more active coordinating role with the new co-executive directors.
Hoffman also said there is now a more inclusive culture because the door to the "Ivory Tower" is open, allowing a friendly voice ecosystem into the roadmap conversation.
There is better layer-2 integration and developing interoperability standards, positioning Ethereum layer-1 service providers to L2.
Ultimately, the increasing urgency is to embrace shorter roadmap cycles and faster protocol upgrades.
In a recent podcast, Ethereum Foundation researchers Ansgar Dietrichs and Dankrad Feist said the organization is stepping up to facilitate these steps.
"Part of the Ethereum community has pushed for this shift, while others have rejected it," said Hoffman, continuing;
"Ethereum is a big tent that has room for many different voices."
Ethereum Scaling Debate
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams weighs in on the Ethereum scaling debate, stating, "I support scaling improvements to L1"
"A rollup-centric roadmap actually requires it," continued Hayden Adams.
But if Ethereum ultimately relies on L1 to support DeFi, Solana may have a stronger roadmap, team, and scaling model.
He argued Ethereum should stick to the rollup-centric layer-2 scaling strategy that it has been developing over the past five years.
"People need to choose a path and try to mitigate the risks associated with it vs scrambling to change the narrative and strategy every month."
He added that he also opposes the "just do every approach," which may be the only thing worse than not choosing an approach.
