New officials bring three fires; the new Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation reveals where EF is headed?

The uniqueness of hematopoiesis, survival, and ecological support, the three major future directions of EF.

Written by: Wenser (@wenser 2010)

As the ETH price rose above $2,700, the loyal E-Guards burst into tears again, even though their entry price could be $3,000 or more. As the official core role of the Ethereum ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation (hereinafter referred to as EF) undoubtedly touches everyone's hearts. Recently, in an offline interview with BruceXu, co-founder of ETF Panda, Hsiao-Wei Wang, Executive Director of EF, gave some of her own views and planning instructions on the future development of EF.

Highlight 1: What are the potential explosive applications and exploratory application areas in the Ethereum ecosystem?

When asked about which application areas in the Ethereum ecosystem might experience an explosion and which directions are still being explored, Wang Xiaowei responded: "Personally, I find the aspects of identity and SocialFi quite interesting recently. For example, a mini-program in the Farcaster ecosystem allows users to see the games their friends are playing and supports quick sharing. Although it is still some time away from an explosion, it is relatively easier to penetrate the daily lives of ordinary users and can quickly find its user base. As for large projects, they still tend toward financial-related products, such as innovations in DeFi; additionally, RWA should also belong to the application category, and its future development is worth looking forward to."

Overall, Wang Xiaowei's response was quite standard. It is evident that EF does not have a particularly clear support plan or promotional approach for the subsequent development of the application layer in the Ethereum ecosystem, which is different from the business application development logic of the Solana ecosystem. This aspect is currently the biggest shortcoming of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Highlight 2: EF Internal Organizational Structure?

Regarding the organizational structure of EF, Wang Xiaowei responded: "The general structure of EF includes: first, the Board of Directors, followed by the Management Team, and below that, there are three business clusters, which are not strictly defined departments."

The first is the Operation department, which includes Finance, HR, and Legal; these are necessary for the daily operations of a company or a foundation.

The second is the Development (technology, investment research) department, which, after some recent larger Spin-offs, is now primarily focused on Protocol R&D, and the Research Team is also within this development department.

The third is the Eco Dev (Ecological Development) department, which is related to ecological development. This part may include departments that issue grants, such as ESP and Next Billion Fellowship.

Additionally, it is worth mentioning that according to the LinkedIn interface, the number of active members under the EF organization is 281, making it a veritable medium-sized organization.

EF Official Organization Member Interface

In response to the community's concern about "whether EF doesn't have its own marketing department", Wang Xiaowei also responded positively: "As Josh Stark said, Ethereum doesn't have BD team, Ethereum has one hundred BD teams. For other applications, whether it's Layer 2 or some Dapps, their BD team is like our BD team. We don't think of Ethereum as a brand of our own. For example, for Twitter, we have had some account conversions on Twitter recently. Since the beginning of this year, there is now an Ethereum account and an Ethereum Foundation account. I think it's nice to be separated, because in the past, every time we had to post something with an Ethereum account, it seemed like people would think that this was what the Foundation meant, and it was very restrictive. Now I'm going to use this account to do BD-like things, and do some publicity work to help the community understand what's happening now, anyway, I think it's good to separate this account, and both accounts on both sides can be used by each other."

EF Internal Organizational Structure Diagram

Main Event Three: What are the possible future fund flows for EF?

Regarding the community's longstanding concerns about "the fund operation model of EF and potential funding input channels," Wang Xiaowei responded: "This year, the foundation has started to actively participate in DeFi. At the beginning of February, we had a wave of deployments, and we started to try ETH DeFi Lending. The second phase is also in planning. We are evaluating whether to increase the investment in Lending or to explore more creative ways to utilize ETH assets;

The second relatively large area is Staking. We are also exploring different Staking Options while considering whether EF's participation in Staking can bring positive benefits.

The third point is still in the exploratory stage, which is Tokenization, such as participating in some RWA. Our participation mainly involves some relatively conservative funds, or funds that are relatively good for L1.

In simple terms, perhaps due to the indifference of Vitalik and EF members towards the speculative hype of DeFi, the current sources of revenue for EF are still relatively limited. However, the consistently poor market price of ETH and the complaints from the community have, to some extent, compelled EF to take a new step and attempt more diversified operations to generate income for itself.

Highlight Four: What is the reason behind EF's previous sell-off operations?

Simply put, to survive.

Regarding the behavior of "selling 100 small ETH" that is of great concern to the community, Wang Xiaowei responded, "For us, it is a must to sell because our foundation currently has two to three hundred people, and about 75% of our expenditures require fiat currency, while 25% is in Crypto.

So the first point is that the foundation needs to operate, which requires asset rebalancing.

The second point is that our community may not be very clear about this demand, and we may strengthen our communication.

There is one more thing to mention, which is that when we sell coins, it's not that we are selling at a high point. Often, people say we sell at a high point, but actually many times we are selling at a low point. When it's at a low point, everyone doesn't magnify it, and we haven't designed much here.

In response to the community's suggestion that "EF might adopt a more discreet or OTC method for selling coins," Wang Xiaowei also responded directly: "Our main Treasury is actually very open and transparent, so while it might be possible to do this in the short term, the changes in the main Treasury are something everyone can see."

Under the premise of adhering to EF's mission of decentralization and transparency, they believe that similar ETH selling behavior being public is undoubtedly a better choice.

Highlight Five: Will EF gradually dissipate with the development of the community?

Some speculate that EF may gradually fade away or disband after completing certain missions or stages, allowing the community to drive Ethereum's operation. If that day really comes, how do you envision the Ethereum community operating?

In response to this problem, Wang Xiaowei stood in the position of executive director of EF and gave her own opinion. "First of all, for the Foundation, this year (2025) is a very important year, we are investing a lot of money in the transformation of the whole organization, and maybe next year, if the Foundation sees an increase in the number of other entities in the community that can take the role of the Foundation, we can operate in a conservative, shrinking state," she said.

Interestingly, we need to adjust our strategies every year, as the themes that the foundation focuses on may vary. Perhaps when the foundation emphasizes Protocol, its presence is stronger. So, in the future, if the focus shifts to application layers or Wallets, we might not need such a strong presence, meaning this presence changes every year.

Personally, I hope the foundation can constantly think about how we can enable others to do what we are doing today. What are the things in the future that only we can do? Perhaps that is what we will continue to do.

For example, the part about Coordination heavily relies on changes in various future factors and some support from the community. If the community can perform well, the foundation can turn to more complex issues, or rather, issues that are less overlooked.

In summary, the future of EF is not only in the hands of EF members, but also in the development and future direction of the Ethereum ecosystem and community.