Summary
- Dankrad Feist, a former researcher for the Ethereum Foundation, has proposed a new organization to succeed it.
- This new entity would require a minimum of $1 billion in ETH funding along with staking revenues and a focus on increasing ETH's market value.
- His comments arise amid recent resignations at the Foundation and growing discontent with co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
In light of multiple resignations and increasing criticism of its future direction, the Ethereum Foundation faced sharp criticism from Dankrad Feist, a notable former member, on Thursday.
Feist, who was a leading researcher at the Ethereum Foundation until last year, proposed the establishment of a new organization to “save Ethereum.”
He indicated that this new organization would require at least $1 billion in funding, which should come from “a significant amount” of revenue generated through ETH staking fees.
“The EF currently holds less than 0.1% of all ETH,” Feist noted. “It does not receive any revenue from Ethereum staking or fees.”
To rescue Ethereum, the community must create an organization that is economically aligned with Ethereum and answerable to it.
The EF now holds less than 0.1% of all ETH. There is no flow of Ethereum staking or fee revenues to it.
If we want to get Ethereum back to…
— Dankrad Feist (@dankrad) May 21, 2026
He further added that the new organization should have a board comprised of individuals “who want ETH to increase in value” and “a capable leader who is ready to fight.”
Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has faced challenges in addressing concerns from community members who believe the Foundation is more focused on idealism and technical enhancements than on economic strategies and marketing efforts.
Decrypt reached out to Feist for clarification on whether he was pointing to any specific leader and will provide updates if a response is received.
Despite being a leading cryptocurrency, ranked second after Bitcoin, ETH has struggled to achieve significant price increases in recent years and has not surpassed $5,000. It approached this mark last summer but has since fallen nearly 57% to just over $2,100.
Last year, Buterin admitted that the Foundation needed to implement “substantial changes.” However, when the Ethereum Foundation unveiled a long-awaited new mandate in March, the document included vaguely sexual language and imagery, referencing the contentious Miladys NFT collection, and repeatedly downplayed the organization’s focus on boosting ETH's price.
“Our primary goal is not profit, organizational growth, or blind adoption at any cost,” the document states.
“We are NOT a marketing agency…. We are NOT a casino…. We are NOT opportunists,” another part declared.
Following the release of the mandate, numerous members of the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership have resigned—including two just this week, raising further questions about the organization’s capability to steer the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, none of these developers explicitly criticized Buterin’s vision for Ethereum or the Foundation's new mandate. Feist’s remarks today stand out as the most direct criticism from someone who was a key player in the organization until recently.
Last fall, Feist transitioned from the Ethereum Foundation to work on Tempo, a private blockchain being developed by the payments company Stripe. One commentator in the crypto space compared this career move to environmental activist Greta Thunberg taking a job with oil company British Petroleum.