Vitalik Buterin charts a leaner Ethereum Foundation — less ETH selling, full focus on CROPS!

Vitalik Buterin laid out a sweeping strategic reset for the Ethereum Foundation in a lengthy post on X, saying the EF will pursue "longevity over breadth," cut back on ETH sales, and narrow its mandate to CROPS: censorship resistance, capture resistance, openness, privacy, and security. The EF currently holds roughly 0.16% of all ETH — a fraction of the 10–50% stake common among central foundations of rival chains.

Buterin argued that chasing throughput is a path to mediocrity. "Being as fast and as scalable as possible, and only a small epsilon more decentralized than the others, is a route to mediocrity, and if we try it, we will lose." He pointed to AI-powered formal verification as a near-term tool to make Ethereum provably bug-free within the CROPS dimension.

His own influence on the EF board will shrink as membership expands — a move he framed as intentional.