AI Summary
According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum core developer Zak Cole has established the Ethereum Community Foundation (ECF) with the goal of elevating the price of Ether (ETH) to $10,000. Cole introduced the ECF during the eighth Ethereum Community Conference in Cannes, France, emphasizing the need to address the Ethereum Foundation's perceived neglect of ETH as an asset class. The ECF plans to fund infrastructure projects that enhance the Ethereum ecosystem while simultaneously aiming to increase ETH's market value.
Cole stated that the ECF's mission is to serve ETH holders by taking actions that the Ethereum Foundation cannot or will not undertake. He highlighted the importance of ETH's price as a "direct function of security," advocating for its rise to the $10,000 mark. The ECF intends to provide grants to projects that contribute to ETH burn, public goods, core infrastructure advancement, and Ethereum scaling. These projects must utilize Ethereum as the settlement layer, leading to ETH burns through transaction processing on the Ethereum mainnet. Furthermore, the projects are required to be tokenless and immutable.
During his presentation, Cole criticized Uniswap, Ethereum Name Service, and Optimism for receiving support from the Ethereum Foundation and subsequently launching their own tokens backed by venture capital funding. He argued that publicly funded projects should remain public and benefit those who have financed them. Cole also expressed dissatisfaction with the Ethereum Foundation's approach to ETH as a valuable asset. Cointelegraph attempted to contact the Ethereum Foundation for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The Ethereum Validator Association (EVA) has been announced as the first recipient of a grant from the ECF. Cole explained that the EVA will empower validators by giving them a voice in shaping Ethereum's monetary policy, prioritizing EIP road maps, and selecting client priorities. He noted that the EVA introduces validator representation, allowing clients to be empowered based on their performance. Additionally, Cole pointed out a potential conflict of interest involving Offchain Labs, the team behind the layer-2 network Arbitrum, which holds an ownership stake in Prysmatic Labs. Prysmatic Labs operates the Prysm client, the second-largest consensus layer client of the Ethereum network, according to Ethernodes.