The Ethereum Foundation’s Vision — Vitalik Buterin, Aya Miyaguchi
Ethereum ’s power stems from its decentralized nature — not only technically, but also socially and structurally. This article explains the vision, role, and priorities of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) as one of the guardians of the ecosystem. As the new management team takes office, we reaffirm the vision, principles and values that we have always upheld. These priorities are not a rigid programme, but are reflected in the strategy articulated by the two co-executive directors of EF. By clarifying our working methods and focus, we hope to clarify the direction of our efforts and also indicate that we will deliberately withdraw from certain areas - to ensure that the ecosystem can continue to prosper with the participation of everyone.
Vision
Protecting the Infinite Garden - an ecosystem of projects, communities, and infrastructure built around Ethereum, so that it remains resilient in a changing environment. We see Ethereum as a world computer shared by humanity. This open, permissionless platform has brought stability, freedom, and technology-enabled collaboration to millions of people around the world. We value the real value that Ethereum is creating.
Therefore, we use the metaphor of an “infinite garden” to describe the Ethereum ecosystem: a living, evolving space where builders, dreamers, and guardians from around the world spread their creativity, support each other, and jointly create tools that will reshape the foundations of civilization, such as finance and identity, for decades to come.
Role Positioning
Ethereum’s greatest strength lies in its unrivaled ecosystem. Outside of EF, numerous groups are pushing the boundaries of an ever-expanding suite of technologies through technological innovation, educational activities, and public goods funding. EF’s mission is to strengthen this advantage and safeguard core values: we fill gaps, correct imbalances, support key initiatives, and always ensure that no single entity (including EF) can dominate the evolution of Ethereum. We intervene strategically, exit consciously, and continue to adjust our focus as Ethereum matures and the environment evolves.
Through "purposeful subtraction", we empower ecosystem members to take primary responsibility. Today our role is twofold:
- We do what no one else can do today;
- We will also help others to do tomorrow what only we can do now.
This means focusing on high-leverage areas where EF is uniquely positioned to support the ecosystem in ways that other organizations can’t, while building the capabilities and infrastructure so that others can eventually take the lead. Here are some real-world examples:
We are doing what no one else can do today:
- Funding and maintaining critical Ethereum infrastructure, such as client diversity.
- Neutral governance will be critical in coordinating core protocol upgrades (e.g. Merge, Dencun) across these critical initiatives — both those that will be completed over the next 12 months and longer-term efforts to define Ethereum’s role over the next decade.
- Support zero-knowledge research and open source tools to advance the frontier of privacy-preserving technology.
- Host ecosystem-wide meetups (like Devcon) that bring together globally diverse contributors.
- Operate ethereum.org as a neutral public knowledge hub for new users and builders.
We are also helping others grow to take on the roles we once had:
- By funding early-stage public goods projects until they are self-sustaining or community-funded.
- Open source educational content, developer tools, and research for others to build upon.
- Help new coordination mechanisms emerge and guide them towards independent management (e.g. MACI pilot, agreement consortiums, retrospective public goods funding).
- Supporting geographic decentralization and local leadership through: Next Billion Scholarships to empower local builders in underserved regions; Grassroots Community Grants to strengthen local Ethereum ecosystems; Road to Devcon to engage and grow regional communities ahead of Devcon; and the Devcon Scholars Program to provide support and opportunities for participants from underrepresented communities.
Working methods
Adaptive Evolution: We co-evolve with the ecosystem, continually reassessing our role and impact. Our structure and initiatives adapt to the changing needs of Ethereum while maintaining our core principles.
Thoughtful Complexity: We embrace the complexity required of decentralized systems while pursuing elegant solutions. Our goal is not to simplify for the sake of simplicity, but to achieve balance through careful design.
Community Empowerment: We support and encourage community-led initiatives , helping to create the conditions that allow independent teams to succeed without relying on the Foundation.
Core Principles
Long-termism: Focus on the long-term success of Ethereum rather than short-term gains, assess the sustainable, multi-generational impact of each decision, and recognize that enduring resilience requires continuous learning, adaptation, and evolution.
Value protection: Defending the core values of Ethereum - anti-censorship, open source, privacy and security, while enabling the autonomous development of the ecosystem. Make these qualities the cornerstone of lasting innovation.
Purposeful subtraction builds resilience, not power, by:
- Maintain diversity in approaches, solutions, and teams.
- Facilitate broad participation.
- Promote collaboration.
- Reduce centralization.
Strengthening resilience does not mean doing less; it often requires adding new mechanisms or complexity – but always with the goal of building anti-fragile ecosystems, with power and ownership widely distributed.
Future goals
Our direction at this critical juncture and in the years ahead is shaped by a clear vision. The team is deeply involved and existing projects are already driving the continued evolution of Ethereum. The future of work is not about hitting certain benchmarks, but about focusing on what matters most. To guide our collective focus, we have outlined a number of impact areas — specific outcomes that any participant in the Ethereum ecosystem can contribute to.
These goals are not set in stone; they will evolve with the needs of the ecosystem and the world around us.
EF’s role is to identify high-leverage gaps — areas where it can uniquely fill them — and focus its efforts there to create the greatest impact.
Goal 1: Maximize the number of users who benefit from the underlying value of Ethereum
Meaningful scenarios include:
- Internet-native finance: using tokenized assets/DeFi for payments, savings, and wealth accumulation in areas where fiat infrastructure is limited or may be unreliable in the future;
- Internet-native organizations: Participate in DAOs with programmable incentive structures to achieve collaboration, decision-making, and capital formation beyond traditional methods;
- Decentralized social networking: Using a social platform based on Ethereum, content is stored on a decentralized network, and users can switch clients without losing their social graphs;
- Decentralized AI: Collectively train AI models with verifiable security guarantees based on Ethereum, and establish economic frameworks for AI agents to coordinate with humans (such as micro-prediction markets);
- Enterprise applications: Institutional applications that use Ethereum on the backend can still provide auditability, privacy, interoperability and "escape hatch" mechanisms even if they interact through non-wallet interfaces.
Non-target scenarios include:
- Only supports escrow solutions for transfers between escrow wallets;
- Institutional applications that only hash events on-chain without providing additional security attributes.
Goal 2: Maximize the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure
Resilience is reflected in:
- Ecological autonomy: not dependent on EF or any single organization;
- Value consistency: stick to values in the face of strong temptations;
- Team diversity: A strong and diverse independent development team;
- Network integrity: Maintaining liveness, censorship resistance, and security in the face of severe infrastructure shocks;
- Decentralization: Eliminate single points of control or failure;
- Proactive risk management: Ability to identify and mitigate centralized points of failure that emerge over time.
Non-tough performance:
- Although there are many teams in education, client development or event organization, their funding is completely dependent on EF;
- Bottlenecks caused by high resilience in some areas and low resilience in other areas (e.g. wallets, ZK provers, social single points of failure);
- Superficial diversity that masks common vulnerabilities (e.g. 20 clients sharing the same code base, 100 countries operating from the same central organization).
As we advance these goals, we also maintain a long-term perspective — viewing Ethereum not just as a technology, but as a living ecosystem with the potential to serve humanity for generations.
We envision a future where Ethereum serves as a resilient, neutral global coordination platform. Decentralization must be maintained in development and governance, innovation will flourish at every layer of the protocol, and communities around the world will be able to build and maintain their own adaptive solutions. We believe the technical and social resilience of the web will continue to grow, and the Foundation will use its vision and capabilities to ensure our shared success.
The Next Chapter of the Ethereum Foundation — Hsiao-Wei Wang, Tomasz Stańczak
Hello! This article was co-authored by Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz. It’s been almost a month since we took on the role of Co-Executive Directors of the Ethereum Foundation (EF). The honeymoon period is over, it's time to act.
A time of transformation and opportunity
Ethereum has always been a journey: an evolving ecosystem driven by a group of builders who believe in an open and decentralized world. Although EF has been established for ten years, we always maintain the courage to innovate ourselves.
This year, EF adopted a new leadership model with two executive directors. This design brings together diverse and complementary perspectives, enhancing our ability to address complex challenges. We will embrace future opportunities and challenges with a firm commitment to the core values of Ethereum, guided by the spirit of guardianship, coordination, and long-term vision.
It is important to emphasize that EF is not a two-horse carriage that goes its own way. Our partnerships are built on mutual respect, trust and shared values. We work closely together, challenge each other constructively, and ultimately move forward as a unified team with a shared goal.
Working principles and key areas
Going forward, we will be working around two pillars: Guiding Principles (Core Values) and Purpose (Strive for Impact and Resilience). Excellent technology is the foundation of all our work and the fundamental guarantee for achieving our mission.
As Executive Directors, our role is to implement EF's vision in a rapidly changing world. This includes strategic planning, ecosystem stewardship, team leadership, and operational oversight — all in service of Ethereum’s long-term success.
The core values we advocate:
- Censorship resistance: Ensure that Ethereum remains an open network where anyone, anywhere can trade and build without barriers, without external control.
- Open source innovation: Promoting collaborative, transparent and community-driven development through open sharing of knowledge tools.
- Privacy protection: Enable private interactions without sacrificing security, safeguarding personal freedom and autonomy in the digital age.
- Security: Maintain the trust, robustness, and resilience of the entire Ethereum ecosystem through secure design and continuous research.
These values guide our technology choices, ecosystem support, and long-term vision of Ethereum as a public good.
While staying true to these values, we set out our key directions for the next 12 months:
- Expand the Ethereum mainnet;
- Expanded Blob transactions;
- Improve user experience (including L2 interoperability and application layer).
This means that the interoperability and coordination mechanism between the mainnet and L2, user experience, and developer experience need to be improved , the application layer and L2 need to be given more display opportunities at the Devcon conference, and their voices need to be amplified through communication channels.
Additionally, we recognize the need to accelerate the Ethereum adoption journey for developers, entrepreneurs, and institutions. EF has the knowledge and leaders to guide, direct, engage and develop talent.
Tomasz's comments
Ethereum will open a new chapter. The core values remain the same - open source, censorship resistance, privacy and security, but EF is changing - it will become a more open communication organization willing to have difficult conversations without delay.
We will focus on speed of execution, accountability, clear goals and quantifiable metrics. Focus on the success of the Ethereum mainnet protocol — it will continue to be a global neutral network, a protocol that is trusted because it is “trustless”. We focus not only on the success of the mainnet, but also on the prosperity of the entire ecosystem: L2, which brings large-scale adoption, creates multiple values for users, and the mainnet serves as a stable and flexible foundation behind all transactions and coordination mechanisms. We look forward to this journey - experiencing the most inspiring technological social changes, walking with visionaries and practical builders.
The coming year will be a year of expansion: expanding the mainnet(L1), supporting L2 successful expansion by providing the best architecture, ensuring network security, and winning user trust. We will strive to integrate the entire chain ecosystem with the best user experience, design and interoperability through excellent engineering and front-end research.
Hsiao-Wei's Supplement
In the coming months, my focus will be on strengthening EF operations to support ecosystem growth. A flexible and efficient foundation can better serve Ethereum’s long-term mission.
While focusing on the core, one of our goals is to provide better support for the application layer. We help builders and users by improving developer experience, clarifying standards, strengthening the ecosystem, and facilitating the process of implementing creative ideas.
We are improving planning, prioritization, and coordination mechanisms within EF and across the ecosystem to ensure our work is aligned with community needs and the Ethereum cypherpunk spirit. But EF’s transformation is just the beginning. The real driving force comes from the energy and creativity of the global Ethereum ecosystem.
Building the future together
Ethereum is not a monolith; it is a living network of community members, builders, researchers, artists, educators, and dreamers. It is global, diverse, and proudly decentralized. We are continually inspired by the creativity and resilience of our ecosystem. The Foundation will continue to be present where it is most needed, but will also make way for the ecosystem to flourish on its own. This is a community-led future.
The road ahead is full of possibilities. Ethereum has changed the boundaries of imagination in areas such as technology, finance, and governance. I would like to thank all the builders, educators, researchers, experimenters, and visionaries of the future. What we build together is something greater than any team, project, or generation. It is an honor to work with you and I look forward to the new chapter that is about to unfold.
Ethereum Foundation Governance and Board Structure — Ethereum Foundation Board of Directors
The Ethereum Foundation’s recent appointment of two co-executive directors and a chairperson is an important part of its organizational structure strengthening plan. This new governance structure aims to ensure the implementation of the foundation's vision, balanced strategic execution, clear technical direction, and sustainable development of the ecosystem. This article will explain the specific structure of the management team and the board of directors.
New management (strategy and operational execution)
The Joint Executive Directors will lead and execute the work together with other members of management. In the future, you will be informed of the management's progress on various plans, decisions and new changes through regular reports:
Joint Executive Directors:
- Hsiao-Wei Wang;
- Tomasz K. Stańczak.
Core management team members and division of labor:
- Bastian Aue: Organizational strategy, talent recruitment and training, and the Collaborative Guardian Program;
- Josh Stark: Project Execution, Communications and Marketing, and Co-Guardian Programs.
Board of Directors (oversight and vision)
The Ethereum Foundation’s Board of Directors acts as a “safety committee” to safeguard the core values of the organization while ensuring that the Foundation operates in compliance as a Swiss entity. The Board of Directors is responsible for setting the vision, monitoring whether management’s strategic decisions are consistent with the Foundation’s values, and exercising the power to appoint and remove the Executive Director. Current board members include:
- Vitalik Buterin (Founder): Continues to provide technical and ideological guidance to the wider Ethereum ecosystem;
- Aya Miyaguchi (Chair): Works with other directors to develop the vision for the Foundation and manage key external relationships;
- Patrick Storchenegger (Swiss Legal Counsel): Swiss representative responsible for legal compliance matters;
- Hsiao-Wei Wang (Co-Executive Director): Serves as a bridge between the Board and executive management.
The Board has communicated to the management team the vision, guiding principles and objectives for the coming years. We anticipate that we will gradually enhance the Board's functions to better fulfill its mission.
Architecture Design Considerations
While the appointment of Tomasz and Hsiao-Wei Wang as co-executive directors is an unconventional decision, this complementary leadership structure is of particular value at a critical stage in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem and the Foundation.
While retaining his other corporate positions (Nethermind and venture capital), Tomasz will use his deep understanding of community needs and technological trends to drive comprehensive and powerful changes at the Foundation. The Board of Directors and Tomasz have reached a consensus that his term as Co-Executive Director is expected to be two years - this is a critical window of opportunity for Ethereum, and he will give full play to his proven strategic execution capabilities and industry experience.
Hsiao-Wei Wang serves as both a board member and an executive director. Her research background and thorough understanding of the foundation’s history enable her to accurately grasp organizational needs and effectively connect board decisions with management execution.
