Ethereum’s energy 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 possibility to restate our imaginative and prescient, ideas and values which we proceed to uphold as we welcome the brand new administration crew. These priorities usually are not a inflexible plan and are mirrored within the methods described by EF’s Co-EDs. By defining our strategy and focus, we additionally purpose 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 laptop, an open and permissionless platform that’s already bringing stability, freedom and technologically-empowered collaboration to tens of millions 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 may redefine finance, id and different roots within the soil of our civilization for many years to come back.
Our Function
Ethereum’s best benefit is its unparalleled ecosystem. There are a lot of groups and organizations exterior of EF that contribute to Ethereum by pushing its boundaries ahead, by means of 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, right imbalances, and assist vital initiatives — at all times making certain that no single actor (together with EF) can dominate Ethereum’s evolution. We step in strategically and step out deliberately, constantly adjusting our focus as Ethereum matures and the setting evolves.
By practising purposeful subtraction, we’ve empowered others within the ecosystem to tackle nearly all of tasks. At the moment, we see our function as twofold:
- We do what nobody else can do right this moment.
- We assist others do tomorrow what solely we are able to do right this moment.
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 reveals up in observe:
The place we step in to do what nobody else can right this moment:
- Funding and sustaining vital Ethereum infrastructure like consumer range.
- Coordinating on core protocol upgrades (e.g. The Merge, Dencun), the place impartial stewardship is crucial – each on vital initiatives that may full throughout the subsequent 12 months, and on longer-term efforts that may 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 deliver 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 by means of grants till they grow to be self-sustaining or community-funded
- Open-sourcing academic content material, developer tooling, and analysis to be constructed upon by others.
- Serving to new coordination mechanisms emerge and guiding them towards unbiased stewardship (e.g. MACI pilots, Protocol Guild, retroactive public items funding).
- Supporting geographic decentralization and native management by means of:
- Subsequent Billion Fellowship – Empowering native builders in underserved areas.
- Grants to grassroots communities – Strengthening native Ethereum ecosystems.
- Street to Devcon – Partaking and rising regional communities forward of Devcon.
- Devcon Students – Offering entry and assist for individuals from underrepresented communities.
Our Method
Adaptive Evolution
We evolve alongside the ecosystem, constantly reassessing our function and affect. Our construction and initiatives adapt to serve Ethereum’s altering wants whereas sustaining our core ideas.
Considerate Complexity
We embrace the required complexity of decentralized programs whereas striving for elegant options. Our objective isn’t simplification for its personal sake however somewhat reaching steadiness by means of cautious design.
We assist and amplify community-led initiatives, serving to create circumstances the place unbiased groups can succeed with out ongoing dependency on the Basis.
Core Rules:
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 affect 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
Fairly than accumulate energy, we design for resilience by:
- Sustaining a plurality of approaches, options, and groups
- Enabling various participation
- Facilitating collaboration
- Decreasing centralization
Constructing resilience isn’t about doing much less. It usually requires including new mechanisms or complexity — however at all times with the objective of making an anti‑fragile ecosystem that distributes energy and possession broadly.
Targets Forward
As we transfer by means of a pivotal time and into the years forward, our course 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 power the place it issues most. To assist information our collective focus, we’ve outlined just a few affect areas — tangible outcomes that anybody within the Ethereum ecosystem can contribute towards.
These objectives usually are not static; they are going to 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 attainable affect.
Objective: Maximize the quantity of people that (instantly or not directly) use Ethereum, in such a means that they profit from Ethereum’s underlying values.
What significant utilization can seem like:
- Web-native monetary entry: Individuals utilizing tokenized belongings on Ethereum or DeFi for funds, financial savings and wealth constructing – notably the place fiat infrastructure is proscribed, unreliable or prices extortionate charges, or the place the infrastructure is dependable right this moment however can simply grow to be unreliable tomorrow.
- Web-native organizations: Individuals 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 approaches
- Decentralized social media: Individuals 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 graph
- Decentralized AI: Individuals constructing on Ethereum to collectively prepare and supply AI fashions with verifiable safety ensures, and in addition utilizing Ethereum to create financial frameworks the place AI brokers can coordinate with one another and human beings (examples: micro prediction markets)
- Enterprise advantages: Individuals utilizing an institutional utility that makes use of Ethereum on the backend. If constructed accurately, this may present advantages equivalent to auditability, privateness, interoperability and “escape hatch” mechanisms even when customers usually work together with the app by means of servers with out a pockets (examples: on-chain-enforced limits to financial issuance; skill to exit belongings 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 put up hashes onchain to signify 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 appears like:
- Ecosystem autonomy: thriving independently of the EF or every other single group
- Worth alignment: staying targeted on its values, even within the face of sturdy pursuits pulling in different instructions
- Crew range: energy and plurality of unbiased improvement groups
- Community robustness: sustaining liveness, censorship resistance, security even within the face of extremely hostile occasions towards massive components of technical infrastructure (together with “low ranges of the stack” e.g. OS, {hardware}, web)
- Decentralization: eliminating single factors of management or failure
- Proactive 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 sturdy groups in schooling, consumer improvement, or organizing occasions, but all depending on EF for funding
- Excessive-resilience in some sectors, however very low-resilience in others, which then grow to be vital bottlenecks (e.g. wallets, proprietary ZK provers, social single factors of failure)
- Performative range that masks underlying widespread vulnerability (e.g. 20 shoppers that truly use many of the similar code base, occasions in 100 nations which might be run by the identical centralized group)
As we work towards these affect areas, we additionally stay grounded in a long-term perspective — one which sees Ethereum not simply as a know-how, however as a residing ecosystem with the potential to serve humanity for generations to come back.
We envision a future the place Ethereum serves as a resilient, impartial platform for international coordination. That signifies 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 all the pieces inside its imaginative and prescient and skill to make sure that we succeed collectively.
