Ethereum’s power lies in its decentralization — not simply technically, however socially and structurally. This weblog articulates the EF’s imaginative and prescient, its function, and priorities as one of many ecosystem’s stewards. We use this second as a chance to restate our imaginative and prescient, rules and values which we proceed to uphold as we welcome the brand new administration workforce. These priorities will not be a inflexible plan and are mirrored within the methods described by EF’s Co-EDs. By defining our strategy and focus, we additionally intention to make clear the place we direct our efforts — and the place we deliberately step again — in order that the ecosystem can proceed to thrive with everybody’s participation.
Imaginative and prescient
To steward the Infinite Backyard — the ecosystem of initiatives, communities, and infrastructure constructed round Ethereum — to stay resilient amid altering environments. We uphold Ethereum as humanity’s shared world pc, an open and permissionless platform that’s already bringing stability, freedom and technologically-empowered collaboration to hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide. We honor the truth that Ethereum is already in use, creating actual worth for communities throughout the globe.
In that spirit, we embrace the metaphor of the Infinite Backyard to explain the Ethereum ecosystem: a residing, evolving area the place builders, dreamers, and stewards from around the globe can plant concepts and assist one another as we construct the instruments that can redefine finance, identification and different roots within the soil of our civilization for many years to return.
Our Function
Ethereum’s biggest benefit is its unparalleled ecosystem. There are numerous groups and organizations exterior of EF that contribute to Ethereum by pushing its boundaries ahead, via technical improvements, academic occasions, and by funding public items. The Ethereum Basis exists to strengthen this benefit and to uphold Ethereum’s core values. We determine gaps, appropriate imbalances, and assist vital initiatives — all the time making certain that no single actor (together with EF) can dominate Ethereum’s evolution. We step in strategically and step out deliberately, repeatedly adjusting our focus as Ethereum matures and the surroundings evolves.
By practising purposeful subtraction, we’ve empowered others within the ecosystem to tackle nearly all of obligations. Right this moment, we see our function as twofold:
We do what nobody else can do at this time.We assist others do tomorrow what solely we will do at this time.
This implies specializing in high-leverage areas the place EF’s distinctive place permits us to assist the ecosystem in methods few others can — whereas additionally constructing capability and infrastructure so others can finally take the lead. Beneath are examples of how this exhibits up in follow:
The place we step in to do what nobody else can at this time:
Funding and sustaining vital Ethereum infrastructure like consumer variety.Coordinating on core protocol upgrades (e.g. The Merge, Dencun), the place impartial stewardship is important – each on vital initiatives that can full throughout the subsequent 12 months, and on longer-term efforts that can outline Ethereum’s function for the subsequent decade.Supporting zero-knowledge analysis and open-source tooling that pushes the frontier of privacy-preserving tech.Internet hosting ecosystem-wide gatherings (like Devcon) that convey collectively various international contributors.Working ethereum.org as a impartial public information hub for brand new customers and builders.
The place we’ve helped others develop into roles we as soon as held:
Seeding early-stage public items initiatives via grants till they change into self-sustaining or community-fundedOpen-sourcing academic content material, developer tooling, and analysis to be constructed upon by others.Serving to new coordination mechanisms emerge and guiding them towards impartial stewardship (e.g. MACI pilots, Protocol Guild, retroactive public items funding).Supporting geographic decentralization and native management via:
Subsequent Billion Fellowship – Empowering native builders in underserved areas.Grants to grassroots communities – Strengthening native Ethereum ecosystems.Highway to Devcon – Partaking and rising regional communities forward of Devcon.Devcon Students – Offering entry and assist for contributors from underrepresented communities.
Our Strategy
Adaptive Evolution
We evolve alongside the ecosystem, repeatedly reassessing our function and impression. Our construction and initiatives adapt to serve Ethereum’s altering wants whereas sustaining our core rules.
Considerate Complexity
We embrace the mandatory complexity of decentralized techniques whereas striving for elegant options. Our purpose just isn’t simplification for its personal sake however slightly attaining stability via cautious design.
We assist and amplify community-led initiatives, serving to create circumstances the place impartial groups can succeed with out ongoing dependency on the Basis.
Core Ideas:
Lengthy‑time period Pondering
We optimize for Ethereum’s lengthy‑time period success over quick‑time period positive aspects, evaluating each resolution for its sustainable, multi‑generational impression and recognizing that lasting resilience requires steady studying, adaptation, and evolution.
Stewardship of Values
We defend and nurture Ethereum’s core values — censorship resistance, open supply, privateness, and safety — whereas empowering the ecosystem to develop and evolve independently. We protect these important qualities as the inspiration for lasting innovation and progress.
Purposeful Subtraction
Quite than accumulate energy, we design for resilience by:
Sustaining a plurality of approaches, options, and teamsEnabling various participationFacilitating collaborationReducing centralization
Constructing resilience isn’t about doing much less. It typically requires including new mechanisms or complexity — however all the time with the purpose of making an anti‑fragile ecosystem that distributes energy and possession broadly.
Objectives Forward
As we transfer via a pivotal time and into the years forward, our route is formed by a transparent imaginative and prescient. Groups are deeply engaged, and lively initiatives are already in movement to assist Ethereum’s continued evolution. The work forward isn’t about hitting benchmarks — it’s about focusing our vitality the place it issues most. To assist information our collective focus, we’ve outlined a couple of impression areas — tangible outcomes that anybody within the Ethereum ecosystem can contribute towards.
These objectives will not be static; they may proceed to evolve alongside the ecosystem and the wants of the world round us.
The Ethereum Basis’s function is to determine high-leverage gaps — the locations the place it’s uniquely positioned to contribute — and direct its efforts towards the best doable impression.
Objective: Maximize the quantity of people that (immediately or not directly) use Ethereum, in such a means that they profit from Ethereum’s underlying values.
What significant utilization can appear to be:
Web-native monetary entry: Folks utilizing tokenized property on Ethereum or DeFi for funds, financial savings and wealth constructing – notably the place fiat infrastructure is restricted, unreliable or fees extortionate charges, or the place the infrastructure is dependable at this time however can simply change into unreliable tomorrow.Web-native organizations: Folks taking part in DAOs with programmable incentive constructions that allow new types of coordination, decision-making, and capital formation that transcend the restrictions of conventional approachesDecentralized social media: Folks utilizing an Ethereum-based social media platform the place content material is saved in a decentralized community, permitting customers to modify shoppers with out giving up their social graphDecentralized AI: Folks constructing on Ethereum to collectively prepare and supply AI fashions with verifiable safety ensures, and likewise utilizing Ethereum to create financial frameworks the place AI brokers can coordinate with one another and human beings (examples: micro prediction markets)Enterprise advantages: Folks utilizing an institutional utility that makes use of Ethereum on the backend. If constructed appropriately, this may present advantages comparable to auditability, privateness, interoperability and “escape hatch” mechanisms even when customers usually work together with the app via servers with no pockets (examples: on-chain-enforced limits to financial issuance; skill to exit property to L1 and work together with L1 DeFi; skill to zk-prove credentials to arbitrary third-party apps)
What it’s not:
Custodial wallets that solely enable ETH or token transfers to different accepted custodial wallets.Establishments that submit hashes onchain to symbolize occasions, with out really giving customers safety properties that they would not in any other case have.
Objective: Maximize the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure.
What resilience seems to be like:
Ecosystem autonomy: thriving independently of the EF or some other single organizationValue alignment: staying targeted on its values, even within the face of robust pursuits pulling in different directionsTeam variety: power and plurality of impartial improvement teamsNetwork robustness: sustaining liveness, censorship resistance, security even within the face of extremely hostile occasions towards massive elements of technical infrastructure (together with “low ranges of the stack” e.g. OS, {hardware}, web)Decentralization: eliminating single factors of management or failureProactive danger administration: The ecosystem’s skill to proactively determine and mitigate central factors of failure that will come up over time
What it’s not:
100 robust groups in training, consumer improvement, or organizing occasions, but all depending on EF for fundingHigh-resilience in some sectors, however very low-resilience in others, which then change into vital bottlenecks (e.g. wallets, proprietary ZK provers, social single factors of failure)Performative variety that masks underlying frequent vulnerability (e.g. 20 shoppers that truly use a lot of the identical code base, occasions in 100 international locations which are run by the identical centralized group)
As we work towards these impression areas, we additionally stay grounded in a long-term perspective — one which sees Ethereum not simply as a expertise, however as a residing ecosystem with the potential to serve humanity for generations to return.
We envision a future the place Ethereum serves as a resilient, impartial platform for international coordination. That implies that decentralization should stay preserved in each improvement and governance, innovation will flourish at each layer of the stack, and communities around the globe can craft and maintain their very own adaptive options. We imagine the community’s technical and social resilience will solely proceed to develop stronger, and EF will do every little thing inside its imaginative and prescient and skill to make sure that we succeed collectively.
