Recently, the Ethereum ecosystem has been criticized by the community for its lack of progress and new narratives. Well-known KOL Cobie recently questioned Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, about the high “consulting fees” charged by members of the Ethereum Foundation, which may harm the interests of the community.
Recently, in the community, users have been criticizing the lack of progress in the Ethereum ecosystem during this bull market. Apart from the Re-staking narrative, there are no projects worth the high gas fees for users to participate in. In the previous bull market, due to the catalyst of the DeFi and NFT markets, the average transaction fees often reached 100-200 gwei. However, in this bull market, few people are participating in the Ethereum ecosystem, resulting in gas prices remaining below 10 gwei. As of now, the gas price is reported to be 3 gwei.
In response to external criticism, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, tweeted on the community platform X, expressing his pride in Ethereum’s freedom of expression for people to express their ideas. Although Vitalik praised the public’s freedom to express their ideas about Ethereum, the freedom of speech in the comments below his tweet also sparked controversy.
Regarding the conflict of interest of Ethereum Foundation members holding dual roles, well-known crypto KOL Cobie, who has 723,000 followers on the community platform X, commented below Vitalik’s tweet, stating: “This statement immediately sparked a heated discussion among many community members. Some people believe that it is normal for consultants to receive salaries, while others believe that there are many potential risks in hiring internal members of the Ethereum Foundation as “consultants”.
Furthermore, Cobie further gave an example of the potential conflicts of interest that Ethereum Foundation members may face: Foundation researchers admit that they are discussing a million-dollar reward with EigenFoundation.
As of the deadline, Vitalik Buterin has not yet responded to his comments. However, as Cobie’s comments continue to spread, Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, tweeted on the 19th that he has just become a consultant for EigenFoundation and is discussing a multi-million-dollar consulting incentive fee for three years.
However, Justin Drake promised to reinvest the incentive fee in Ethereum ecosystem projects or donate it. If the project moves in a direction that is unfavorable to Ethereum, he will also terminate the consulting position.
At the same time, Justin Drake also stated that the Ethereum Foundation is an organization with over 300 people. To his knowledge, three Foundation members have formal relationships with EigenLayer, one as an early investor and two as EigenFoundation consultants. However, he believes that the Ethereum Foundation members he knows all have high moral standards and will not engage in unethical behavior.
However, even in an organization with over 300 people, even if the majority of members possess the high moral standards described by Justin Drake, is it possible that a small portion of members may act against the interests of Ethereum due to their own interests? This is something we should deeply consider and continue to observe.