Former EF developer Dankrad Feist suggests $1 billion raise to form new Ethereum advocacy group

Discontent with the Ethereum Foundation and concerns over its impact on Ethereum’s value intensified Thursday after prominent former developer Dankrad Feist proposed creating a new organization designed to help "save" ETH.

"The way to save Ethereum: The community needs to create an organization that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it," Feist said, proposing a new ETH-focused organization with a minimum of $1 billion in funding and what he described as competent leadership.

In its current state, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is a non-profit stewarding the development of the world's second-largest blockchain.

In recent years, frustration has been growing across the Ethereum community with high-profile contributors exiting EF. For his part, Feist left last year to join alternative Layer 1 network Tempo, while former researcher Danny Ryan — once considered a candidate to help run the foundation — instead co-founded Etherealize, an institutional marketing and product arm focused on promoting Ethereum.

This week, Ethereum Foundation researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma tendered their resignations.

If it can be founded, a new Ethereum organization should be run by a board that is held more accountable and is tasked with trying to make the price of Ethereum rise, while being funded in part by staking revenue, added Feist. He also pointed out that "EF now holds less than 0.1% of all ETH" and "there is no flow of Ethereum staking or fee revenues to it."

Ethereum's (ETH) market capitalization is over $250 billion, its price changing hands at $2,148.56.

While working in the Ethereum community, Feist co-created the Danksharding sharding design used to improve Layer 2 scalability. During a shakeup among the EF's leadership, Feist was named as a strategic advisor across areas like L1 scaling and UX. Feist ambitiously wanted to improve the largest smart contract blockchain, including proposals like EIP-9698 to increase Ethereum’s gas limit 100-fold.

Many were disappointed to see Feist exit EF.

"Dankrad has been an excellent researcher and has made immensely valuable contributions to the Ethereum that we know and love today," Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin said.