The Ethereum Foundation Executive Director, Aya Miyagotchi, announced on Friday that the foundation is accelerating the development of policies to address concerns regarding the substantial advisory fees that Ethereum Foundation members have been receiving for their roles as external project advisors. There is a concern about potential conflicts of interest and damage to the Ethereum community’s interests.
The issue was raised by prominent cryptocurrency influencer Cobie, who questioned the high advisory fees charged by the Ethereum Foundation and how they could potentially harm the community’s interests.
The question is whether core developers or researchers of the Ethereum Foundation can accept high rewards from Ethereum ecosystem projects and become project advisors, and whether such actions would lead to conflicts of interest and harm the interests of the Ethereum community. This topic has recently sparked intense discussions in the cryptocurrency community.
Cobie raised concerns that Ethereum Foundation members who hold dual roles may face conflicts of interest, especially when projects may present conflicts of interest with Ethereum, using the popular staking protocol EigenLayer as an example.
This week, two Ethereum Foundation core researchers, Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist, who have frequently criticized EigenLayer in the past, announced that they would serve as advisors to EigenFoundation in their personal capacities, admitting that they would receive a large number of tokens from EigenLayer. Drake also disclosed that his advisory service would reward him with millions of dollars’ worth of EIGEN tokens over a period of three years, which is likely to exceed the total value of his cryptocurrency assets (mainly ETH).
The Ethereum Foundation stated that it is expediting the development of policies to address concerns about potential conflicts of interest raised by the community. Aya Miyagotchi, the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, tweeted yesterday evening, stating:
“We are actively working on addressing the potential conflict of interest concerns raised by the community. Stay tuned for updates and more information.”
This statement seems to be a response to Justin Drake’s previous statement that the Ethereum Foundation members he knows adhere to “high ethical standards” and would not engage in unethical behavior even when serving as advisors to external projects. Drake also promised to reinvest the incentive fees into Ethereum ecosystem projects or donate them, and he would terminate his advisory position if the project moves in a direction unfavorable to Ethereum.
Regarding the question of whether EigenLayer is systematically buying off Ethereum Foundation members, Drake stated that, to his knowledge, three Ethereum Foundation members have formal relationships with EigenLayer – one as an early investor and two as advisors to EigenFoundation.
Lefteris Karapetsas, a former Ethereum software engineer and founder of the cryptocurrency portfolio tracking tool Rotki, commented on the community’s criticism of the Ethereum Foundation’s high advisory fees for external advisors.