The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has repeatedly emphasized its image of decentralized community governance, but reports indicate that co-founder Vitalik Buterin actually holds a full veto power on the board, raising questions about the transparency of its governance. (Background: The Ethereum Fusaka upgrade is scheduled for the end of 2025, does the removal of EOF indicate the community wants to abandon the EVM?) (Supplementary background: Is Ethereum openly outperforming Solana? The community proposal to 'increase the gas limit one hundred times' theoretically boosts TPS to over 2000.) Ethereum has its origins dating back to 2015 and has created a smart contract platform over the past decade, making it second only to Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency space. However, Laura Shin, the author and historian of the book studying blockchain history (The Cryptopians), has long been unable to provide an answer to this fundamental question in her book: How much voting power does Vitalik Buterin actually hold in the decision-making power of the Ethereum Foundation? The report from Protos may disappoint the community in its attempt to obtain an answer. Does the Ethereum Foundation avoid answering? Despite Ms. Shin's numerous attempts in recent years, including a recent inquiry, the Ethereum Foundation has never publicly disclosed the specific allocation of voting rights within its core meeting, the 'Board'. This ongoing 'radio silence' has left the community feeling even more confused and uneasy amid a recent wave of 'Ethereum pessimism' (fud). Interestingly, no matter how many times this question is asked, the response is always silence. As the core supporting organization of the Ethereum ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation claims to have a decentralized and transparent governance structure, composed of the community, which has attracted support from many engineers with an open-source spirit and crypto-native ideals. Therefore, understanding how to maintain community trust and the spirit of decentralization is crucial for Ethereum. The size of the influence of founders within the organization, especially their weight in formal decision-making mechanisms, is one of the key indicators for assessing the degree of decentralization of a project. The Ethereum Foundation's reticence on this issue naturally leads to much speculation. Contradictory messages: Vitalik has absolute veto power. In its public communications, the Ethereum Foundation has consistently worked to shape an image of decentralization, community-driven, and jointly supervised. The foundation often emphasizes the collective role of its board and downplays Buterin's role as an individual within the organization, even though he is regarded by the community as the most critical founding figure and is widely seen as the leader of Ethereum. In a recent announcement regarding the restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation, which involved a new vision statement and the appointment of co-executive directors, these were all presented in the form of a joint statement from board members, intending to convey the impression that ultimate power is held by a team rather than a single individual. This contradicts the information previously conveyed by the foundation. The report mentions that as early as 2020, board member Patrick Storchenegger (Swiss legal advisor) privately informed Ms. Shin that Buterin had three votes at that time, in a four-person board, three votes were sufficient to unilaterally veto or pass any resolution, even if the other three members opposed it. If this information is true, it means Buterin holds disproportionate power. Buterin himself has also been inconsistent in public statements regarding his voting rights; at times he mentions that he only has one vote. More notably, in January of this year, in response to community criticism of the foundation's leadership reforms, Buterin's remarks seemed to contradict the community's emphasis on joint supervision and the spirit of decentralization, suggesting that he holds the final decision-making power at critical moments. "I am the one deciding the new EF leadership team... before (the reforms are completed), it is my decision." Current status and challenges of governance transparency The Ethereum Foundation's board currently consists of four members: co-founder Vitalik Buterin, current chair Aya Miyaguchi, co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang, and Swiss legal advisor Patrick Storchenegger. However, reports indicate that it seems no board member is willing to publicly explain the number of voting rights each member possesses. This lack of transparency has raised concerns among community members and external observers. Below the article, a comment responded to Ms. Shin's question about its importance: "I hope you can get an honest response" and "I hope you can get an answer to this question; it is important for transparency." In decentralized nonprofit organizations, achieving a stable and consistent governance structure amid the chaotic and fragmented 'imaginary state' is complex, especially in the rapidly evolving and controversial cryptocurrency field. The foundation may refuse to disclose specific voting rights details due to certain principles, legitimacy considerations, or legal reasons. However, for the blockchain industry, which sees decentralization as the gold standard, whether the actions of the Ethereum Foundation in dumping and reversing within the ecosystem are playing the role of a core funder and coordinator of the ecosystem or becoming a centralized corrupt entity that exploits the ecosystem has also sparked community controversy. Is the foundation pretending to be 'making efforts to improve'? The reforms and direction of the Ethereum Foundation can be said to closely follow community sentiment adjustments. At the end of last year, when the community questioned the foundation's actual role in the ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation underwent restructuring at the beginning of this year; after being criticized by many Ethereum OGs last month for being 'overly focused on Layer 2', recent core members have also expressed many remarks and proposals to 'optimize Layer 1'. Is this just a coincidence in the sequence of events? No one knows, but it seems that the Ethereum Foundation is making 'lagging improvements' in response to community and ecosystem complaints, despite the lack of direct responses and explanations. Many in the community still distrust the Ethereum restructuring, part of which is due to women holding key positions (board members and chair), attracting criticism from the traditional male-dominated open-source engineer stereotype group, claiming that during critical moments, they are still following DEI principles rather than focusing on problem-solving. The restructuring of the Ethereum board and the new board members still need time to prove their capabilities. In summary, Ethereum's recent actions have attracted attention from the entire community. Whether it can gain goodwill and trust in this year's Pectra and Fusaka upgrades will be the community's main focus.

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