Buterin says Ethereum Foundation will shrink, sell less ETH, and focus on ‘CROPS’

Buterin's influence in the EF will decrease as the board expands. He framed the EF as "one node, with a defined purpose," not the center of Ethereum.

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Buterin says Ethereum Foundation will shrink, sell less ETH, and focus on ‘CROPS’

Buterin’s influence in the EF will decrease as the board expands. He framed the EF as “one node, with a defined purpose,” not the center of Ethereum.

By Francisco Rodrigues|Edited by Aoyon Ashraf

May 25, 2026, 3:51 p.m. 3 min read

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What to know:

Buterin states that the Ethereum Foundation will pursue “longevity over breadth,” reduce ETH sales and narrowly focus on CROPS (censorship resistance, openness, privacy and security).
Buterin’s influence in the EF will decrease as the board expands. He framed the EF as “one node, with a defined purpose,” not the center of Ethereum.
Buterin argued that maximizing throughput/speed is a mistake that leads to mediocrity. Instead, Ethereum must strive to be “deeply impressive” in the CROPS dimension.

Nearly 90% of his own net worth sits in ETH, with the remaining roughly $40 million in onchain fiat already earmarked for open-source biotech, software and hardware initiatives, Buterin added.

His influence within the EF will continue to decrease as the board expands, aligning with his desire to be less influential there. However, he also hedged his words, saying, “This is only my own view. The board is not just me, and I have no extra special powers on the board that the other board members do not.”

He framed the EF as “one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes,” not the center of Ethereum. Addressing throughput, Buterin said it would be a mistake for Ethereum to maximize it.

“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.”

Instead, Buterin pointed to Ethereum striving to be “deeply impressive” in what he called the “CROPS dimension.” That involves making Ethereum provably bug-free, which is argued to be within reach given AI-powered verification.

The post landed after at least 8 senior EF contributors left or announced departures in 2026, 5 in May alone, reigniting debate over the foundation’s direction.

Crypto community reacts

Prominent Ethereum voices were supportive of Buterin.

Anthony Sassano, an independent Ethereum educator, angel investor and advisor, replied directly to the post, thanking Buterin. A separate quote tweet from Sassano focused on Buterin’s framing of ETH as the most high-value “product” of the Ethereum blockchain.

Author and early Ethereum advisor William Mougayar quote-tweeted the post: “Basically, Ethereum just got its own Clarity Act over the weekend. It was a crystal clear message, and the road ahead is super clear. Ethereum is untouchable.”

Developer Suhail Kakar also replied directly, calling the post “bullish.” “A foundation voluntarily shrinking its own power is the rarest thing in crypto. genuinely the most cypherpunk thing I’ve read in a long time.”

Meanwhile, core developers picked at the CROPS framework.

Go-Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden replied that security was being underdiscussed: “When people talk about CROPS, they seem to focus on the CR, OS and Privacy part. The security part is in my opinion the most important! Without a secure L1 none of this makes any sense and we have taken Ethereum’s base layer security for granted by now.”

Consensus layer developer Potuz followed up in the thread, noting that “one of Ethereum’s biggest selling points is the no downtime since genesis” and that the record made every fork a concentrated risk.

Laura Shin, host of Unchained, asked the governance question the post left open: “What’s the process for adding new members to the board?” Buterin did not publicly answer at the time of writing. DeFiPrime founder Nick Sawinyh noted the EF now sounded “less like a cathedral and more like a protocol commons operator.”

Others criticized the cryptocurrency’s performance. Ether has fallen nearly 60% against bitcoin over the last five years, to 0.02738 BTC. Over that period, bitcoin’s price nearly doubled from $35,600 to $77,500 at the time of writing.

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