Former Developer Calls for $1B Ethereum Advocacy Fund

Tensions inside the Ethereum Foundation are rising again. This time, it’s about money and direction.

On Thursday, Dankrad Feist, who designed the Danksharding scalability model, posted on X that the community needs a new organization. He wants it funded with at least $1 billion. The goal? To advocate for Ethereum in a way that is economically aligned with the community.

Feist said the current Foundation holds less than 0.1% of all ETH. It does not earn from staking or transaction fees. He believes this limits its ability to support the asset’s value.

A Wave of Departures

Feist is not alone in leaving. This week, researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma resigned. Earlier, Danny Ryan left to co-found Etherealize, a group focused on institutional marketing. Feist himself left last year to join Tempo, a competing Layer 1 network.

The departures highlight a deeper issue. Some developers feel the Foundation lacks direct economic incentives. They want a structure that is more accountable to the community and focused on financial performance.

The New Proposal

Feist’s plan is straightforward. He suggests a new entity led by a board of directors. The board would be accountable to the community, not the Foundation. Its main job would be to execute commercial strategies that drive ETH’s price.

Funding could come partly from the network’s staking revenues. Feist pointed out that the Foundation operates on a non-profit basis. It gets no revenue from transaction fees or validator staking. This limits its market impact. Currently, Ethereum’s market cap is over $250 billion, with ETH trading around $2,148.

Technical Debate Continues

The discussion also covers the network’s roadmap and execution capacity. During his time at the Foundation, Feist advised on Layer 1 scalability and user experience. His technical proposal, EIP-9698, aimed to increase the gas limit by 100 times. That would lower operational costs.

Despite disagreements over direction, Vitalik Buterin publicly recognized Feist’s work. He called him an excellent researcher whose contributions were invaluable.

The community is now looking at governance mechanisms to formally present this new economic proposal in upcoming technical forums. Whether it gains traction remains to be seen.

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