The EF just released its Mandate. It's not a retreat. It's an invitation.
CROPS โ censorship resistance, open source, privacy, security โ is what makes Ethereum Ethereum. Without these properties, you have a slow database. The Mandate makes this explicit, and stating clearly what you are *and are not* is an act of institutional clarity that is long overdue.
Some raise concerns: is this a turnaround? Is the EF abandoning real-world adoption, rejecting institutional engagement, walking away from the pragmatic compromises that gave Ethereum product-market fit?
These concerns would be valid, and devastating, *if* the EF were the whole of Ethereum.
But it is not. And that is exactly the point.
The EF is one steward, not the sole one. The Mandate is a scoping document for *one organization*, not a scoping document for the ecosystem. The moment we stop conflating EF with Ethereum, the Mandate reads not as a retreat, but as an invitation.
We โ the community, the builders, the standards authors, the enterprises, the wallets, the researchers โ are going to fill these other roles. Individually and together.
I am optimistic precisely because the EF is not trying to be everything. That is the precondition for the rest of us stepping up.
And here is where the ERC community comes in.
We will be supporting the adoption of ERCs grounded in CROPS principles. ERCs that preserve user agency. ERCs that are practically implementable. ERCs that engage wallets, exchanges, institutions, and application builders to find the path from where the world is today to where Ethereum can take it.
The ERC process does not need the EF to carry it. It needs the community to own it.
In fact, ERCs are the perfect embodiment of the model the Mandate envisions.
ERCs are free to collaborate on and free to compete with. No one forces adoption โ you adopt an ERC because it solves your problem. Governance happens through sovereign individuals making their own selections. You vote with your feet. You build together without coercion.
This is CROPS in action at the standards layer: open, permissionless, forkable, and accountable to no one except the people who choose to use them.
Let's build ERCs.
Together, we will have a bright future for
@Ethereum and the world.
The call is open. Let's get to work.
@ERCRef
Today, the Foundationโs Board released the EF Mandate.
This document, which was first intended for EF members, reaffirms the promise of Ethereum, and the role of EF within this ecosystem.