Core Mission: Building Truly Decentralized Infrastructure
The interim executive director of the Ethereum Foundation made a public statement, clearly articulating the foundation's core mission. At its heart, the mission is to safeguard Ethereum as a truly permissionless (anyone can participate without needing third-party approval), censorship-resistant (transactions and smart contracts cannot be arbitrarily blocked), privacy-first (protecting user transaction data and identity privacy), and credible-neutral (protocol rules treat all participants equally) infrastructure. This mission aligns with the decentralized ethos that Ethereum has pursued since its inception and responds to the growing industry focus on the underlying characteristics of public blockchains.
The interim executive director emphasized that Ethereum is not merely a smart contract platform but should become a trusted base layer for the global digital economy. To this end, the foundation will invest resources in maintaining the neutrality and security of the core protocol, ensuring that no individual or organization can undermine the network's fundamental properties through technical or economic means. This commitment to the non-capturability of the infrastructure layer is key to differentiating Ethereum from other blockchain projects.
As part of executing its mission, the foundation has identified four systemic risks facing the Ethereum ecosystem and prioritized their mitigation. First is the problem of MEV (Miner Extractable Value) abuse. With the boom in DeFi and on-chain activity, validators can reorder transactions to extract excess profits, harming ordinary users and threatening network fairness. The foundation will promote research and implementation of MEV mitigation solutions such as fair ordering proposals.
Defending Against Four Systemic Risks
Second is the risk of staking centralization. In Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake mechanism, a large fraction of ETH is concentrated in a few large staking pools like Lido and Coinbase, potentially leading to centralized control of the network. The interim director called for encouraging diverse independent stakers and improving protocol design to lower barriers for small validators.
Third is the lack of privacy. While Ethereum's public ledger ensures transparency, it also means all transaction amounts and addresses can be tracked, contradicting the need for financial privacy by sovereign individuals. The foundation will support integrating privacy-enhancing technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) to provide optional privacy layers on Ethereum.
Fourth is the opacity of the transaction pipeline. Users often cannot predict how their transactions will be processed—whether they will be front-run, sandwiched, or delayed. The foundation aims to standardize and increase visibility of transaction flows, reducing room for malicious manipulation.
Exploring Long-Term Technological Opportunities
While defending against risks, the Ethereum Foundation is also actively pursuing long-term technological opportunities. First is post-quantum cryptography. As quantum computing advances, current public-key cryptography may be broken, so Ethereum needs to adopt lattice-based or other post-quantum schemes early to protect future asset security. Second is the self-verifiable protocol stack—using ZK proofs and similar techniques to allow users to independently verify the integrity and correctness of on-chain data without relying on third-party nodes, further enhancing credible neutrality.
Third is secure scaling. While maintaining decentralization, Ethereum must achieve higher transaction throughput via rollups and sharding without compromising security. Fourth is sovereign digital cash—the eventual vision of users holding truly self-controlled digital cash, enabling peer-to-peer transactions without permission from banks or payment providers, embodying the original cryptocurrency promise.
The interim executive director's statement sets a clear direction for the Ethereum Foundation's priorities in 2026 and beyond. As Ethereum transitions from PoW to PoS and continues maturing, the implementation of these mission items will directly impact its ability to remain competitive in the next cycle.