Buterin Says Ethereum Foundation Is Not the Center of Ethereum

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to growing criticisms of the Ethereum Foundations role in the Ethereum ecosystem, pushing back against critics who want the organization to take a more active role in supporting token prices and marketing.

Buterin said the Foundation will continue to focus on promoting censorship-resistance, open source software code, long-range research, cybersecurity, and decentralization of the Ethereum Protocol, as outlined in its mandate. He said:

EF is not a ‘center of Ethereum’, rather EF is ‘one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes’. We have always said that the EF should be the latter, but many in the Ethereum ecosystem, and even within the EF, wanted us to be the former.

“Now, we are taking action to ensure that we will be the latter,” he continued, adding that the Ethereum Foundation seeks to strengthen Ethereums cybersecurity and code base but not necessarily compete with high-throughput chains or scale to 1 million transactions per second.

The comments follow several large ETH holders selling their entire ETH position and high-profile departures from the Ethereum Foundation, as the current price of the cryptocurrency, about $2,094, sits more than 50% below its all-time high of nearly $5,000 reached in August 2025.

“The EF has only about 0.16% of all ETH,” he said, noting that it is common for other foundations to hold 10-50% of their native tokens.

Under pressure amid falling token price

“I think Ethereums original sin was not considering tokenomics with every move it made from Dencun on,” cryptocurrency journalist Laura Shin said.

The Dencun upgrade was a major protocol update released in March 2024, which significantly reduced network fees for layer-2 transactions and led to a subsequent collapse in Ethereums base layer revenue.

Most investors “dont want to believe in something that is not also putting up points on the scoreboard,” Shin said about ETH.

Buterin said on Sunday that the Foundation would focus on “longevity” and stretch its funds to finance research, meaning it would sell less ETH in the future.

In May, the Foundation unstaked 21,270 ETH from the Lido liquid staking platform, as part of its treasury strategy.

Unstaking ETH means those holdings will no longer generate yield for the Ethereum Foundation, but it is not a confirmation that the organization will sell those tokens.