The Ethereum Foundation’s new mandate — an ambitious document released Friday to clarify the organization’s role and principles — has sparked a torrent of reactions, with its supporters hailing it as a long-overdue expression of blockchain ethics and its critics saying it reinforces the foundation’s hands-off approach at a time when Ethereum needs stronger leadership to meet the growing needs of institutions.
The 38-page document lays out what the foundation describes as a constitutional guide to its mission, emphasizing its role as a neutral steward rather than a centralized authority. The mandate frames the foundation’s work to maintain Ethereum as a decentralized and resilient infrastructure while supporting the protocol layer and public goods across the ecosystem.
The document came at a pivotal time for Ethereum. The network has grown into one of the largest crypto ecosystems in the world, and the foundation itself has seen leadership changes and debates over how it should lead development.
Over the weekend, reactions to X quickly divided into two camps.
Criticisms: Not focused on products and institutions
Critics were quick to argue that the mandate was too philosophical and did not address Ethereum’s need to compete for real-world adoption, especially as institutional interest in blockchain increases.
Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher and key contributor to Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, said the document does not address practical business development concerns about how the ecosystem serves real users.
“The fundamental problems remain: there are very few voices within ACD that care about the actual use of Ethereum. No one is doing Ethereum BD (everyone who is doing it also has their own interests),” he wrote in an article on X, referring to the bi-weekly “all major developers” call.
Others suggested the mandate risked reinforcing a status quo in which the foundation wields significant influence without clearly defined responsibilities.
Yuga Cohler, an engineer at Coinbase, expressed concerns that the foundation might focus too heavily on ideological principles at a time when Ethereum faces increasing competition for institutional capital.
“Just as Netscape wasted time on a rewrite from version 4 to version 6 at a time when Microsoft was absolutely killing them, EF insists on focusing on cypherpunk values at a pivotal moment when institutions are finally connected – often on other networks,” he wrote. “An FE determined to win would focus on making Ethereum the best finance chain. That’s not what they’re doing today.”
Supporters: a clear declaration of values
Other community members welcomed the mandate as a reaffirmation of the network’s founding principles.
Chris Perkins, president and managing partner of crypto investment firm CoinFund, said the document helps clarify the foundation’s purpose as a nonprofit manager of the ecosystem.
“@ethereumfndn is a non-profit organization. Remember this. It makes sense that it focuses on vision, values and management. I think its goals (censorship resistant, open source, private and secure – CROPS) make sense,” he said in an article on X.
Taylor Monahan, a former Metamask employee and longtime Ethereum contributor, also described the mandate as a necessary reminder of the foundation’s role, pushing back against critics who said the organization needed to operate like a product company.
“Users are not using blockchains. They are using products. EF is not building a product. They are building a blockchain. A platform. That allows anyone to build anything they want without permission,” she wrote in her post. “I know it’s confusing because there are a lot of shallow, single-purpose blockchains out there.”
Infrastructure companies in the Ethereum ecosystem have also expressed support for the mandate.
Nethermind, a company that develops one of the leading client software implementations of blockchain, said the document reflects many of the properties that institutional buyers already look for when evaluating blockchain infrastructure.
“The EF mandate codifies properties that institutional public markets already evaluate: operational resilience (security), data protection (privacy), freedom from vendor lock-in (open source), and platform neutrality (censorship resistance),” the company wrote in a post. “The @ethereumfndn protects the protocol. @Nethermind builds what institutions deploy on it.”
Supporters have largely framed the mandate as a reaffirmation of Ethereum’s long-standing philosophy: maintaining a minimal base layer while enabling innovation at the application and infrastructure level.
The wider debate
The debate around the mandate reflects a deeper question about Ethereum’s identity as it grows.
The Ethereum Foundation has historically positioned itself as a coordinator of research, funding, and ecosystem development, not a central governance authority. The new mandate appears designed to reinforce this philosophy, emphasizing principles such as censorship resistance, open source development, privacy and security.
But as Ethereum becomes increasingly important to global finance and digital infrastructure, it has become harder to avoid questions about who – if anyone – speaks on behalf of the network and how decisions are made.
Read more: Ethereum Foundation publishes new mandate defining its role and fundamental principles
