Ethereum Foundation cuts and departures aren't a crisis, Joe Lubin says
Key takeaways
- "It is important that the Ethereum Foundation be credibly neutral above reproach," Lubin said in an interview.
- Lubin said many of those concerns stem from a misunderstanding of what the foundation is supposed to do for the blockchain, which handles about 2 million transactions a day, according to Etherscan data.
- "What's happening at the EF is cleaning that up," he said, referring to efforts to separate protocol stewardship from commercialization and business development.
Lubin, who has no role at the foundation, told CoinDesk that the organization's role should be narrower, more focused on stewarding the network's core technology and values, while other organizations take responsibility for adoption, institutional engagement and ecosystem growth.
"It is important that the Ethereum Foundation be credibly neutral above reproach," Lubin said in an interview. "The opportunity for conflicts of interest between the business side and the builders is just not a credibly neutral way to run your decentralized protocol ecosystem."
The comments come after weeks of debate over the foundation's direction. Critics have questioned whether the organization, often known by its initials, has moved quickly enough to address competitive threats and improve Ethereum's market position, while others have raised concerns about staff departures and restructuring.