Ex-Ethereum Dev Proposes $1B Advocacy Group

A former core developer at the Ethereum Foundation has stirred fresh debate by calling for a new, well-funded organization to promote Ethereum’s value. Dankrad Feist, who created the Danksharding scalability design, outlined the proposal on X this Thursday. He argued that the community needs a body that is economically aligned with Ethereum and directly accountable to its users. Feist suggested a minimum funding of $1 billion and competent leadership to run it.

Internal Tensions Grow

The proposal arrives amid rising internal friction. Recently, researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma resigned from the Ethereum Foundation. Earlier, another key researcher, Danny Ryan, left to co-found Etherealize, a division focused on institutional marketing. Feist himself left his post last year to join Tempo, a competing Layer 1 network. This wave of departures has fueled concerns about the foundation’s direction and its ability to execute the network’s roadmap.

Focus on Financial Incentives

Feist’s core argument is that the current nonprofit foundation lacks direct economic incentives. He pointed out that the foundation holds less than 0.1% of all ETH in circulation. It also does not receive any flow of staking rewards or transaction fees. The proposed new entity would be guided by a board of directors answerable to the community. Its primary goal would be to execute commercial strategies that could support the cryptocurrency’s market price. Feist suggested that funding could partially come from network staking revenues.

At the time of writing, Ethereum’s market cap hovers above $250 billion, trading around $2,148. The asset’s value remains a central topic in these governance discussions. Despite his criticism, Feist’s technical work is still respected. During his tenure, he served as a strategic advisor on Layer 1 scalability. He also proposed EIP-9698, which aimed to increase the network’s gas limit by 100-fold to lower costs. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly called Feist an excellent researcher whose contributions were invaluable.

The broader community is now assessing how to formally bring this economic proposal to upcoming technical forums. It’s unclear yet whether the idea can gain enough traction to move beyond discussion. The episode highlights a growing divide between those who want a more commercially focused Ethereum and those who prefer the foundation’s original non-profit ethos.

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