Ethereum Supporters Respond to Doubts: "The Market Will Eventually Awaken"
Ethereum insiders refute criticisms about the network's leadership and development roadmap, emphasizing that their ecosystem is built to create long-term value.
Toronto Report - Ethereum has just completed its most important upgrade in over a year, but behind this milestone, the blockchain has experienced turbulent times. ETH price has been continuously declining, developers are turning to competing platforms, and the Ethereum Foundation, as a non-profit management entity, has been questioned for lack of coordination and long-term vision.
In a panel discussion at the CoinDesk Toronto Consensus conference, Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at Ernst & Young and Chair of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, and Josh Stark from the Ethereum Foundation, painted a more optimistic picture of future development.
Stark noted that the community currently expects two things: First, "the ecosystem needs stronger leadership... demonstrating more robust leadership in roadmap formulation and execution, effectively coordinating the ecosystem to address major challenges."
Secondly, the network needs more effective communication. "Ethereum's fundamentals are extremely solid, but few have stepped up to explain the ecosystem's story and voice the extraordinary achievements being built," Stark said.
Despite recent difficulties, Stark and Brody firmly assert that Ethereum remains the most innovative and forward-looking project in the cryptocurrency field.
Brody believes concerns about the foundation's leadership have been exaggerated. He gave the highest praise to former Ethereum Foundation Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi, who served from 2018 until her departure this year. "If objectively measured by achievements, I would give Aya Miyaguchi an A+ rating," Brody said.
"Ethereum is a proof-of-stake chain with over 120 Layer 2 networks," Brody pointed out. He added that the current network processing capacity is close to "an average of 300 million to 450 million transactions daily" and that "Layer 2 transaction fees have remained below one cent per transaction in the past three months".
In March 2025, Miyaguchi transitioned to Ethereum Foundation Chair, appointing Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as new joint executive directors - part of a leadership restructuring aimed at strengthening the foundation's strategic focus.
Some critics believe Ethereum's roadmap is overly dependent on Layer 2 Rollup solutions (independent blockchains that process transactions at low cost and ultimately "settle" transaction history on the Ethereum mainchain). Brody defended the network's Rollup-centric development path: "This is precisely the direction that delights me," he stated.
Although Layer 2 solutions like Optimism, Arbitrum, and Coinbase's Base network have reduced user fees (typically seen as the primary obstacle to widespread network adoption), skeptics argue they also introduce new security risks and fragmentation issues that threaten Ethereum's fundamental value proposition.
"Ethereum is doing what Ethereum should do," Brody said, "which is identifying problems, solving them, and then moving to the next problem. What was the biggest issue we faced in recent years? Scalability, right? Improving from 1 million transactions per day to 450 million network capacity is already remarkable."
"All ecosystems will ultimately follow a modular, specialized development path like Layer 2," Stark added, "We're just further along this path, encountering twists and challenges first and working to address them."
Ethereum's native token ETH has long been viewed as a blue-chip asset in the cryptocurrency field. However, in recent months, its performance has lagged behind some competitors. Network tokens are typically seen as a barometer of the ecosystem's overall health.
Stark noted that Bitcoin has successfully positioned itself as a reliable store of value, making it more resistant to market fluctuations. "Ethereum's narrative is more complex," he said.
Nevertheless, Stark remains confident that the market will ultimately reflect Ethereum's deeper value.
"The world will not stop understanding these technologies and systems," he said, "The market will eventually embrace this somewhat complex but equally real value proposition. I believe we are already starting to see this trend. The market will ultimately value it correctly. In my view, Ethereum has always been, and will always be, the most important project in the cryptocurrency field."
