In May, Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist, researchers at the Ethereum Foundation who served as advisers to Eigenlayer, announced their resignation on the 2nd, citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest with Ethereum and the need to maintain neutrality.
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In May of this year, Ethereum Foundation researchers Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist successively announced their roles as advisors to the Ethereum re-pledging protocol EigenLayer, sparking heated discussion in the crypto community.
Although Ethereum Foundation members serving as advisors would mostly have a positive impact on the project, the community at that time believed that those holding dual positions could face conflicts of interest, especially if the project currently or in the future may have conflicts of interest with Ethereum.
However, Drake said he trusts the character of the members of the Ethereum Foundation and insisted on joining in a personal capacity. Similarly, Feist also served as an advisor in his personal capacity, and both stated that if the development of EigenLayer was not beneficial to Ethereum, they would immediately terminate their advisory positions.
(Extended reading:
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Under this backdrop, Justin Drake tweeted on the 2nd that he had resigned from his advisory position at EigenFoundation in September, and stated that he will not participate in any advisory, angel investment, and security committee member positions in the future to express his neutral stance.
In addition, another researcher, Feist, also announced on Twitter on the 2nd that he will resign from his advisory position at Eigenlayer because conflicts of interest make it difficult for him to effectively fulfill his duties as an Ethereum researcher.
Is it because the community doesn’t trust them?
From the resignation statements of the two researchers, it is not difficult to see that the community is worried that the potential “conflict of interest” between Ethereum and EigenLayer could affect the neutrality of the researchers and thus harm the interests of Ethereum.
However, the author believes that it may be due to the recent frequent sale of ETH by the Ethereum Foundation, coupled with the long-term downturn of the Ethereum ecosystem and the continued weakness of the coin price, which has gradually caused the community to become disappointed with the Ethereum Foundation. Furthermore, the governance token $EIGEN of EigenLayer has been continuously declining since it started trading. These factors have led the two researchers to withdraw from their advisory roles at EigenLayer to avoid further questioning from the community.
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