Author: Zen, PANews
A long-hidden internal letter has once again put the Ethereum Foundation (EF) in the spotlight.
On October 20, a letter from former Ethereum core developer and main maintainer of the Geth client, Péter Szilágyi, addressed to the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) last May, reignited widespread criticism of the EF within the community.
After Péter lit the fuse for criticism against the EF, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon and CEO of the Polygon Foundation, and Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic, also stepped in to express their dissatisfaction, disappointment, or doubts. Following Sandeep's lengthy post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also published a response to him, aiming to "reassure."
Péter Szilágyi: Enumerating the "Three Sins" of the Ethereum Foundation
As a veteran core developer of Ethereum, Péter Szilágyi's grievances with the EF are not new. In June of this year, Péter officially parted ways with the EF.
Péter Szilágyi
Péter stated that he was once offered about $5 million in funding to spin off the most mainstream execution layer client, Geth, from the EF system into a private company, but he rejected the offer. He also claimed to have discovered that the EF was secretly funding another Geth team, intending to undermine and marginalize the original team. Péter mentioned that he was dismissed shortly after discovering this situation.
In the publicly disclosed letter, Péter revealed more details about how the EF "exploited" him. He stated that the "leader" persona assigned to him by the EF was merely "perceived leadership," symbolizing diverse viewpoints in public but lacking real power in private decision-making; when he publicly opposed powerful figures or conflicts of interest, it not only damaged his and Geth's reputation but also failed to change the course.
In Péter's view, the first reason for Ethereum's failure is that, despite its lofty ambitions, it can be easily bought off by enough money and unhesitatingly abandon its principles. "I'm glad you built an empire for us, now step aside and let those who can make money for us lead us." Between the lines, Péter expressed disappointment at the trend of "everything for money" on social media.
On the other hand, the EF has been too stingy with its employees, long "suppressing salaries." Péter stated that his total pre-tax compensation during his first six years (2015-2021) at the EF was $625,000, with zero bonus income. This level of salary is typically just entry-level in major U.S. companies and high-paying cities, while at the same time, ETH's total market value rose from zero to $450 billion. Péter noted that the situation of low returns for "workers" at the EF has improved in the past two years, possibly related to the Protocol Guild, which was established in 2022 to provide funding specifically for Ethereum core developers, aiming to fill the gaps in the developer compensation system.
Finally, he believes that Ethereum has formed a "high-level ruling elite" around Vitalik—Vitalik's attention, donations, and investments almost determine which projects will succeed, leading many new projects to bypass public offerings and instead seek the endorsement or advice of 5 to 10 core opinion leaders and 1 to 3 VCs behind them, with media and research networks echoing each other, completely dominated by relational networks in terms of ecological development opportunities.
Péter believes that the aforementioned issues within the EF have become deeply entrenched and difficult to reverse: the foundation has exhausted the community's loyalty to it, and the elite circle around Vitalik will not relinquish power.
Ongoing Fallout: Sandeep's Disappointment and AC's Questions
After Sandeep Nailwal, CEO of the Polygon Foundation, shared Péter's lengthy post, he took the opportunity to express multiple grievances against the EF and the community.
Sandeep stated that he began to question his loyalty to Ethereum, believing that this matter deserved to be clarified publicly. Similar to the mindset of core developers like Péter Szilágyi, Sandeep feels that Polygon has made significant contributions to Ethereum's infrastructure and ecosystem but has long been unrecognized and unsupported by the EF and the core circle, instead often marginalized and questioned whether it truly qualifies as an Ethereum L2.
Sandeep stated that Polygon has long insisted on positioning itself as Ethereum's L2 out of loyalty, rather than branding itself as an independent L1. This has not only diminished Polygon's narrative but also prevented it from obtaining ecological recognition premiums. He pointed out that if Polygon shifted to an L1 narrative, its valuation could increase by 2 to 5 times.
"The Ethereum community needs to seriously examine itself," Sandeep also criticized the Ethereum community, pointing out that contributors like Péter Szilágyi are being forced to question or even regret their loyalty to Ethereum, and the community is "not innocent."
Taking advantage of this controversy, Yearn and Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje (AC) directly questioned where the EF's funding has gone.
AC stated that he has been building on Ethereum for years, having burned over 700 ETH just on infrastructure-related expenditures. However, he received no response after multiple attempts to contact the EF, stating, "No business connections, no funding, no support, not even a retweet." He questioned: If the EF does not support core clients/developers and does not support leading L2s, then who is the funding going to?
It is worth mentioning that while Ethereum's situation is in turmoil, Solana's co-founders Toly and Raj are online recruiting them to join the Solana ecosystem in the comment sections of AC and Sandeep. Someone pointed out a news report where Sandeep had previously "looked down on Solana, claiming it had no future," to which Raj simply replied, "All can be forgiven."
Vitalik Responds: Justifying Sandeep, Focusing on Product and Technology
In the face of the intense public opinion, Vitalik Buterin responded to Sandeep's remarks.
Vitalik first positively acknowledged Sandeep and Polygon's long-term contributions, including hosting Polymarket, one of the few truly "non-purely financial, socially beneficial" blockbuster dApps, supporting many applications with high scalability needs, and early investments in ZK-EVM to promote the zero-knowledge proof ecosystem.
Regarding the leader who promoted the implementation of the above, Sandeep, Vitalik also praised him morally. He mentioned that after he donated SHIB to the Indian pandemic relief fund, Sandeep proactively "returned" about $190 million to Vitalik for the Balvi Foundation to advance open-source research projects on "airborne pathogens," which Vitalik considered very important and accelerated related public health progress.
In addition, Vitalik did not respond to topics related to the EF but instead focused on product and technology aspects.
He expressed understanding that Polygon had undertaken the most challenging exploratory phase early on, but now the ecosystem has formed a pattern where "L2 teams" and "ZK teams" each specialize, and he personally hopes that Polygon can quickly adopt mature, ready-made ZK technology directly on the PoS chain to obtain stronger security guarantees from Ethereum L1.
Vitalik's response seemed like a precise "technical reassurance"—he affirmed the value of contributors while cleverly avoiding the core inquiries regarding the EF's governance structure and resource allocation. This may temporarily quell Sandeep's personal emotions but is unlikely to extinguish the deeper concerns ignited by this controversy.
This dispute, sparked by an old letter, ultimately became a mirror. It reflects the governance paradox that Ethereum must face after its tremendous success: how to find a new balance between scale and power, ideals and reality.
"Let us wait and see what the future holds," Péter wrote at the end of the letter. This statement is not only his personal sentiment but also a heavy inquiry into the future direction of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
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