Blockchain researcher defends Ethereum Foundation, says it’s doing ‘exactly’ its job

A blockchain researcher has pushed back against growing criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, arguing that the organization is doing “exactly” what it was designed to do, which the critics keep getting wrong.

In a post on X titled “Leave the Foundation Alone,” William Mougayar, a Toronto-based blockchain investor, researcher and best-selling author, argued that the Ethereum Foundation is a protocol steward, not a marketing engine.

Mougayar said that Ether (ETH), Ethereum and the Ethereum Foundation are three separate entities with three separate trajectories. “The asset is money. The infrastructure is shared compute. The Foundation is a non-profit that is steering the protocol toward irrelevance for its own founders,” he wrote, adding that confusing the three leads to bad predictions and misplaced anger.

Source: William Mougayar

The post comes as the foundation has faced a wave of criticism from the crypto community in recent months. ETH sales, unstaking moves and leadership's public silence have drawn repeated accusations that the organization is harming ETH’s price performance.

Related: Ethereum is still a good long-term buy, according data: Analyst

Ethereum Foundation is hardening the protocol

Mougayar said the Ethereum Foundation is on a “subtraction path,” working to become less central to Ethereum over time. “ It is hardening the protocol so the world does not need it so much. It is shipping upgrades. It is funding the research that nobody else funds,” he wrote.

He suggested that the criticism comes from people who want a king. He claimed that expecting the Ethereum Foundation to market ETH or court institutions is “like expecting the IETF to run Super Bowl ads for TCP/IP,” he said referring to internet standards organization, Internet Engineering Task Force.

ETH is currently trading at $2,117.09, up by 4.67% over the past day. However, the token is down more than 57% from its all-time high of $4,953 recorded in August last year, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Related: Harvard dumps entire ETH position after just one quarter

Group sells, unstakes ETH

Earlier this month, the Ethereum Foundation completed its third OTC sale of ETH to BitMine Immersion Technologies, offloading 10,000 ETH at an average price of $2,292, worth roughly $22.9 million. Combined with two earlier transactions, 5,000 ETH in March and another 10,000 ETH the previous week, the Ethereum Foundation has sold approximately $47 million worth of ETH to BitMine in recent weeks.

The sale also came shortly after the foundation unstaked 17,035 ETH worth around $40 million. The foundation also unstaked another 21,270 Ether from Lido, worth nearly $50 million, earlier this month.

Market Moves: Why is Ethereum Foundation selling? BTC futures warning signs