With such lavish spending, where does the Ethereum Foundation spend its money?

Although the Ethereum Foundation's sale of coins has become a target for venting emotions about the sluggish ETH price, we still have to take a serious look at where the money is spent and whether it is worth it. First of all, just yesterday, the Ethereum Foundation just announced its Q2 quarterly grant details. The link is as follows blog.ethereum.org/2024/08/30/e...… A total of 8 million US dollars were allocated to 90 projects, and 11 million US dollars were allocated in Q1, so a total of 19 million US dollars were allocated to fund projects in the first half of the year. The four reports published in 2023 totaled 60.1 million US dollars, so more than half of the annual budget of 100 million US dollars will be given to more than 500 projects in the form of grants. About 50% of these projects are related to developer education, such as course meetings and hackathons held by various schools. The remaining half are related to specific projects, almost all of which are low-level research, focusing on how to make Ethereum more robust, stable and private. These projects are all non-profit in nature, which is pure technical research. I have applied for them before, and the application form clearly stated that they would not fund projects for profit. So to sum up, more than half of the budget each year is invested in two goals 1. How to let more people understand, learn and develop Ethereum 2. How to make the bottom layer of Ethereum more solid. I have participated in and felt these two goals. For the first one, I once applied for and interviewed for the Ethereum Grant for the Ethereum developer community, and participated in the development of two Ethereum learning websites and received funding. I gathered more people to learn about Ethereum, and the funding was allocated to the project team members to motivate everyone. This process was really fulfilling. Second, Ethereum has funded many early pure technical research teams. For example, @puffer_finance, which I support and participate in, initially studied how to allow Ethereum nodes to stake individually without going through Lido, and how to protect the security of stakers' funds through physical isolation to avoid being fined. It was because of the earliest support from the Ethereum Foundation that it was able to reach its current stage step by step. Therefore, it is difficult to calculate whether the investments made by the Ethereum Foundation are “worth it” in a way similar to VC return on investment, because they are all of the type of “silent and subtle”. In fact, whether it is the style of projects funded by the Ethereum Foundation or the development of Ethereum itself from Layer 1 to Layer 2, it can be seen that the overall spirit is “good soil grows good trees, and good trees bear good fruits”. Ethereum believes that as the mother of all chains, it should do a good job in popularizing science, lay a solid foundation, make its own soil more fertile, build a nest to attract the phoenix, and the upper-level applications will naturally evolve from Layer 2 and developers. There is nothing wrong with this logic. If it were me, I would definitely think in this way. Only in this way can I live longer and create more room for innovation. If Ethereum pursues profits, follows hot spots, and creates shill, it may be able to seize a few opportunities, but sooner or later it will not be able to keep up with the hot spots and be abandoned by the times. There are already enough cases of those once aggressive Ethereum killers. It’s just that Ethereum is currently facing pain, which is caused by a combination of factors. It may be that Layer2 makes Ethereum no longer united and competes with each other, or it may be that Layer2 reduces the demand for ETH. Of course, perhaps the most important reason is the lack of structural paradigm innovations such as Defi, NFT, and GameFi. How to solve this problem? I am also confused and often browse the Ethereum forum again and again to try to find the answer from everyone’s discussions. Ethereum is also trying to find the answer, so there is another funding program specifically for the application layer called the Next Billion Program, which has already been in its fourth phase. The main goal is to fund projects that may allow 1 billion people to participate in the blockchain. The latest funding details are as follows blog.ethereum.org/2024/06/24/n...…，其实你能看到风格基本上围绕“人文”展开，“清真风”满满，如版权、农业、政治、公益等，让区块链使得这些涉及民生的领域更加高效透明，也没有资助如大家所常理解的CX盘拉人头的Mass Adoption. You can say that Ethereum is out of touch with reality, or you can say that Ethereum remains true to its original intention. Regardless of the detailed disclosure of the Ethereum Foundation’s expenses, at least we have not seen any of the weird public chains that use yacht models or let media KOLs write gossipy articles. In any case, as a supporter of Ethereum, I admire the style of these people. There are still a small group of people who, in a big melting pot like the crypto, in an era where blockchain is equated with casinos, insist on using technology to make the world a better place. But as an Ethereum investor, it would be a lie if I didn’t say I was anxious. I actually hope that the Ethereum Foundation can undergo an organizational restructuring, such as re-establishing a business-oriented department. The core goal of this department is to make Ethereum produce "Mass Adoption", that is, an increase, that is more in line with the general public's understanding without violating the core value concept framework of Ethereum. @VitalikButerin @ethereum @ethdotorg