Ethereum Co-Founder Lubin Says Foundation Overhaul Is Evolution, Not Crisis
Summary
- Joseph Lubin said the Ethereum Foundation's budget cuts and restructuring are a "necessary evolution" aimed at separating protocol stewardship from business development.
- Lubin said the Ethereum Foundation should focus on protecting the network's core technology and values, while broader adoption, institutional partnerships and ecosystem growth should be handled by other organizations, a structure he said aligns with Ethereum's decentralized philosophy.
- Lubin said Ethereum is not in decline and that the next wave of growth, built on scalability improvements, will be driven by AI, agentic commerce and broader institutional use of blockchain.
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Joseph Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum, said the Ethereum Foundation's recent budget cuts, staff departures and restructuring amount to a necessary evolution rather than a crisis.
Lubin told CoinDesk in an interview published June 7 that the foundation should concentrate on protecting the network's core technology and values. Broader adoption, institutional partnerships and ecosystem growth should be left to other organizations, he said.
"It is important for the Ethereum Foundation to maintain neutrality that no one can question," Lubin said. If business operations and protocol development are mixed together, conflicts of interest can arise, he added, and that is not a desirable way to run a decentralized protocol ecosystem.
The Ethereum community has recently voiced concerns that the foundation has been slower than rival blockchains to respond to the market. It has also faced criticism over its restructuring and staff departures.
Lubin said much of the criticism stems from a misunderstanding of the foundation's original role. The work now underway is intended to separate protocol stewardship from business development and clarify those responsibilities.
He said the Ethereum ecosystem will eventually evolve into a structure in which multiple organizations, rather than a single institution, share responsibilities.
Several core organizations managing the Ethereum ecosystem will each take on roles in their areas of expertise, Lubin said. He described that model as consistent with Ethereum's decentralized philosophy.
Lubin also pushed back on claims that Ethereum is in decline.
"Ethereum is absolutely not declining," he said. Artificial intelligence has recently drawn investors' attention, leaving digital assets relatively overlooked, but he said that is only temporary.
Lubin said the scalability improvements completed so far could form the basis for Ethereum's next phase of growth. He identified agentic commerce, in which AI agents autonomously carry out on-chain transactions, and broader institutional use of blockchain as key growth drivers.
"The next wave of growth will be a hybrid economy in which humans and AI participate in economic activity together," Lubin said. "Ethereum infrastructure will play a central role in that shift."
