Feist proposes $1B Ethereum advocacy group amid EF departures

Discontent with the Ethereum Foundation intensified Thursday after prominent former developer Dankrad Feist proposed creating a new organization designed to help "save" ETH. Feist called for the community to establish an organization that is economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it, with a minimum of $1 billion in funding and what he described as competent leadership. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit stewarding the development of the world's second-largest blockchain, currently holding less than 0.1% of all ETH with no flow of Ethereum staking or fee revenues to it.

Feist's Proposal Details

"The way to save Ethereum: The community needs to create an organization that's economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it," Feist said in a post to X. He proposed that a new Ethereum organization should be run by a board held more accountable and tasked with trying to make the price of Ethereum rise, while being funded in part by staking revenue.

Recent Departures from Ethereum Foundation

Frustration has been growing across the Ethereum community in recent years with high-profile contributors exiting the EF. Feist left last year to join alternative Layer 1 network Tempo. Former researcher Danny Ryan, once considered a candidate to help run the foundation, instead co-founded Etherealize, an institutional marketing and product arm focused on promoting Ethereum. This week, Ethereum Foundation researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma tendered their resignations.

Feist's Background and Contributions

While working in the Ethereum community, Feist co-created the Danksharding sharding design used to improve Layer 2 scalability. He was named a strategic advisor across areas like L1 scaling and UX. Feist proposed EIP-9698 to increase Ethereum's gas limit 100-fold.

Ethereum's (ETH) market capitalization is over $250 billion, with its price at $2,148.56 according to The Block Price Page.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin commented on Feist's departure: "Dankrad has been an excellent researcher and has made immensely valuable contributions to the Ethereum that we know and love today."