The Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit organization that manages the development of the Ethereum ecosystem, published its mandate on Friday, reaffirming the role and core pillars of Ethereum.
Two of the Ethereum Foundation’s stated goals are that Ethereum remains decentralized and that users have the “final say” over their onchain assets and data, while the protocol reaches mass scale as mandated.
Censorship resistance, open-source code, privacy, security, and freedom protection technology are key features of Ethereum that are mandated to be maintained, the document said.
The Ethereum Foundation said it will continue to focus on core protocol improvements, “long horizon research,” cybersecurity and providing tools for Ethereum developers, while minimizing its role as much as possible. Mandate said:
“Our ultimate goal is for Ethereum to pass the road test: its protocols and core implementation layers will be robust and reliable enough that they will continue to function and evolve reliably even if the Foundation and core developers disappear tomorrow.”
The Ethereum Foundation said it aims to focus on tasks that will become less necessary over time through a process of abstraction.
The mandate comes after a difficult year for the protocol, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin saying that Ethereum’s approach to scaling Layer 2 networks “doesn’t make sense anymore” and that many L2 projects are centralized.
related to: AI ‘vibe encryption’ could prematurely set Ethereum’s roadmap: Vitalik Buterin
Buterin says drastic changes are needed in how Ethereum scales
Many Layer-2 networks have centralized control points, including private trust networks and centralized sequencers, and have no plans to move to a fully decentralized model, Buteyrn said.
“The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new way,” Buterin said in February.
Buterin argued that the Layer-2 project, which has the ability to transfer 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), but relies on a multi-signature currency to interact with the Layer-1 protocol, does not extend the Ethereum ecosystem in a decentralized way.
Instead of acting as scalable layers for Ethereum, the ecosystem’s multiple Layer-2 networks should specialize in areas such as privacy, identity solutions, financial platforms and social media applications, Buterin said, drawing mixed reactions from L2 projects.
Magazine: Ethereum Roadmap to 10,000 TPS Using ZK Technology: A Dummies Guide
