The Ethereum Foundation Executive Director, Aya Miyagotchi, announced on Friday that the Foundation is accelerating the development of policies to address concerns regarding the acceptance of substantial advisory fees by Ethereum Foundation members for external consultancy roles, which may lead to conflicts of interest.
Recently, there has been a heated discussion in the cryptocurrency community regarding whether core developers or researchers of the Ethereum Foundation should accept high remuneration from Ethereum ecosystem projects and become advisors. The concern is whether such actions would result in conflicts of interest and harm the interests of the Ethereum community. This issue was raised by well-known crypto KOL Cobie.
Cobie believes that Ethereum Foundation members who hold dual roles may face conflicts of interest, especially when projects may currently or in the future conflict with Ethereum. As an example, he mentioned the popular staking protocol EigenLayer.
This week, Ethereum Foundation core researchers Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist, who have been frequent critics of EigenLayer, announced that they will serve as advisors to EigenFoundation in their personal capacity. Both individuals have admitted that they will receive a large number of tokens from EigenLayer. Drake further disclosed that his advisory services will earn him millions of dollars worth of EIGEN tokens over a period of three years, which may exceed the total value of his cryptocurrency assets (primarily ETH).
The Ethereum Foundation responded by stating that it is expediting the development of policies to address the potential conflicts of interest that the community is concerned about. Aya Miyagotchi, the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, tweeted yesterday evening, suggesting that the Foundation is taking action.
This statement seems to be in response to Justin Drake’s earlier statement that the Ethereum Foundation members he knows adhere to a high ethical standard and would not engage in unethical behavior even as external project advisors. Drake also promised to reinvest his incentive fees into Ethereum ecosystem projects or donate them, and he would terminate his advisory position if the project moves in a direction that is unfavorable to Ethereum.
As for the question of whether EigenLayer is systematically purchasing Ethereum Foundation members, Drake stated that, to his knowledge, three Ethereum Foundation members have formal relationships with EigenLayer; one is an early investor, and two are advisors to EigenFoundation.
Regarding the community’s criticism of the Ethereum Foundation’s high advisory fees as external advisors, Lefteris Karapetsas, a former Ethereum software engineer and founder of crypto portfolio tracking tool Rotki, commented on the matter.
In summary, the Ethereum Foundation is actively working to address concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest arising from the acceptance of high advisory fees by its members. The situation has sparked significant discussion in the cryptocurrency community.