The Ethereum Foundation is currently facing a crisis of trust, receiving widespread criticism from the community. Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, criticized the Ethereum Foundation today for its passive attitude and lack of urgency regarding scalability issues, which has led him to lose faith in Ethereum.
(Background: No love lost… Ethereum core developers: The Foundation is out of touch with the community and has lost enthusiasm for ETH.)
(Additional context: The community is pressing for the resignation of the Ethereum Foundation board, while Vitalik expresses anger: The decision-making power lies with me; outsiders should be quiet.)
Recently, the Ethereum community has been increasingly dissatisfied with Ethereum’s market performance and the Foundation’s continued liquidation of ETH for financial management. This dissatisfaction has left many investors disappointed, especially in the absence of effective promotion of ecological innovations.
In an effort to turn around Ethereum’s downward trend, co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently announced significant reforms to the leadership structure of the Ethereum Foundation and is exploring solutions to address the Foundation’s coin-selling needs through staking, aiming to quell community anger.
Multicoin criticizes the Foundation’s passive attitude towards scalability
In response to the current challenges facing Ethereum, Kyle Samani stated today that he entered the crypto space through Ethereum in 2016, drawn by its vision of permissionless finance and smart contracts. For him, Ethereum was the first meaningful source of wealth, and in 2017, Ethereum’s market cap surged 100 times in a year, setting the record for the fastest achievement of a $100 billion market cap in history.
“Ethereum was my entry into crypto in 2016. I fell in love with the vision for permissionless finance and smart contracts. ETH was my first meaningful source of wealth. In 2017, Ethereum was the center of crypto. Up 100x in a year. ICOs. Future of finance. Gas fees spiking.” — Kyle Samani (@KyleSamani) January 21, 2025
Kyle Samani lamented that Ethereum was once the king of the world, but it now clearly faces significant issues, particularly concerning scalability. He recalled being deeply disappointed at the Devcon 3 conference in November 2017 when Vitalik Buterin’s keynote address made no mention of any scalability solutions:
“This presentation didn’t even attempt to address the scalability issue. After listening to the talk, I felt very disappointed. I couldn’t understand how the Ethereum Foundation could be so completely oblivious. How could they ignore what was happening around them and propose a credible plan with a specific and proactive timeline? This is your annual developer conference, specifically designed to share plans. This chain has a market cap of $100 billion, relying on this plan—how could you not even try to solve this obvious problem?”
Kyle Samani pointed out that Devcon 3 was the moment he lost faith in Ethereum, and seven years later, the Ethereum Foundation still faces issues such as a disconnect between leadership and user needs, as well as a lack of a clear development direction.
His remarks resonated with the community, with some netizens noting that, to be fair, Vitalik had indeed discussed scalability at that time, admitting that Ethereum was too expensive and too slow. However, in recent years, the Foundation has abandoned all the solutions it initially promised, now merely hoping that Layer 2 systems will resolve all ecological problems, criticizing that “this is either naive thinking or they have given up on solving the problem.”
Eric Conner leaves in disappointment
Amidst the ongoing turmoil within the Ethereum Foundation, despite significant reforms to its leadership structure, the community’s disappointment with the Ethereum Foundation persists. Ethereum core developer and co-author of EIP-1559, Eric Conner, even announced his departure from the Ethereum community on the 21st, reflecting deep divisions within the community regarding the governance model and development direction of the Ethereum Foundation.
