Buterin announces that the Ethereum Foundation will reduce its size, decrease ETH sales, and concentrate on ‘CROPS’. He emphasized that his influence in the EF will lessen as the board grows, describing the EF as ‘one node, with a defined purpose,’ rather than the core of Ethereum. What to know: — Buterin asserts that the Ethereum Foundation will prioritize ‘longevity over breadth,’ cut back on ETH sales, and focus specifically on CROPS (censorship resistance, openness, privacy, and security). — Buterin’s authority within the EF will diminish with the board’s expansion, framing the EF as ‘one node, with a defined purpose,’ not as Ethereum’s nucleus. — He contended that striving for maximum throughput/speed is a misstep that leads to mediocrity. Instead, Ethereum should aim to be ‘deeply impressive’ in the CROPS dimension. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the Ethereum Foundation will choose ‘longevity over breadth,’ decrease ETH sales, and narrow its focus to CROPS: censorship resistance, capture resistance, openness, privacy, and security. In a detailed post on X, Buterin revealed that the Ethereum Foundation holds approximately 0.16% of all ETH, significantly less than the 10% to 50% that he noted is typical for central foundations of other blockchains. Nearly 90% of his personal net worth is in ETH, with the remaining approximately $40 million in on-chain fiat allocated for open-source biotech, software, and hardware projects, Buterin added. His role within the EF will continue to wane as the board expands, aligning with his intent to exert less influence. However, he tempered his statements, asserting, ‘This is solely my perspective. The board is not just me, and I have no additional special powers on the board that other members do not possess.’ He depicted the EF as ‘one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes,’ rather than the nucleus of Ethereum. Addressing throughput, Buterin remarked that it would be a mistake for Ethereum to prioritize it. ‘Being as fast and as scalable as possible, and only marginally more decentralized than others, is a path to mediocrity, and if we pursue it, we will fail.’ Instead, Buterin highlighted Ethereum’s ambition to be ‘deeply impressive’ in what he termed the ‘CROPS dimension,’ which includes making Ethereum verifiably bug-free, a goal that is argued to be attainable with AI-driven verification. This post followed the departure or announcement of departures of at least eight senior EF contributors in 2026, five of whom left in May alone, reigniting discussions about the foundation’s direction. Crypto community reacts Prominent figures within the Ethereum community expressed support for Buterin. Anthony Sassano, an independent Ethereum educator, angel investor, and advisor, responded directly to the post, expressing gratitude to Buterin. A separate quote tweet from Sassano emphasized Buterin’s characterization of ETH as the most valuable ‘product’ of the Ethereum blockchain. Author and early Ethereum advisor William Mougayar quote-tweeted the post: ‘Basically, Ethereum just received its own Clarity Act over the weekend. It was a crystal clear message, and the path ahead is exceedingly clear. Ethereum is untouchable.’ Developer Suhail Kakar also replied directly, describing the post as ‘bullish.’ ‘A foundation voluntarily diminishing its own power is an extraordinary occurrence in crypto. This is genuinely the most cypherpunk thing I’ve read in a long time.’ Meanwhile, core developers scrutinized the CROPS framework. Go-Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden noted that security was being insufficiently discussed: ‘When people talk about CROPS, they seem to concentrate on the CR, OS, and Privacy aspects. In my view, the security component is the most crucial! Without a secure L1, none of this makes sense, and we have taken Ethereum’s base layer security for granted by now.’ Consensus layer developer Potuz contributed to the thread, remarking that ‘one of Ethereum’s biggest selling points is the no downtime since genesis,’ and that this record makes every fork a concentrated risk. Laura Shin, host of Unchained, posed the governance question that the post left unanswered: ‘What’s the process for adding new members to the board?’ Buterin did not publicly respond at the time of writing. DeFiPrime founder Nick Sawinyh remarked that the EF now sounded ‘less like a cathedral and more like a protocol commons operator.’ Others expressed criticism regarding the cryptocurrency’s performance. Ether has declined nearly 60% against bitcoin over the past five years, dropping to 0.02738 BTC. During the same period, bitcoin’s price has nearly doubled from $35,600 to $77,500 as of the time of writing.