Nine years after Ethereum’s most serious catastrophe, when the Ethereum community decided to hard fork the blockchain in order to reverse the infamous $50 million DAO hack transactions, the network faces a different type of conundrum – a crisis of leadership, according to its community.

At the center of the controversy is Ethereum Foundation (EF) Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi, the former Japanese high school teacher who assumed the top job at the foundation in 2018. Her focus on “Zen” and building an “infinite garden” where all Ethereum stakeholders get along – all while the network continues to lose ground to Solana – has resulted in increasingly louder calls for her resignation and even death threats.

(Aya Miyaguchi / Unknown)

In a dramatic move on Tuesday, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, revealed that he had assumed control of the foundation. He blasted the incessant online criticisms of Miyaguchi and reassured disgruntled voices that a leadership restructuring was underway.

“The person deciding the new EF leadership team is me,” Buterin posted on X. “One of the goals of the ongoing reform is to give the EF a ‘proper board,’ but until that happens it’s me.”

(Vitalik Buterin assumes sole control of Ethereum Foundation / Vitalik Buterin)

There have been several so-called “Ethereum killers” in the past – EOS, Cardano, Tezos, and more, but the only one that has come close to delivering on that promise is Solana.

The proof-of-history platform is now the fifth-largest blockchain and boasts a market capitalization of $126 billion, a third of Ethereum’s $394 billion market cap. At the time of reporting, Solana’s cryptocurrency SOL was up nearly 30% over the past week – mostly due to the feeding frenzy from Donald Trump’s surprise memecoin launch on Friday. Conversely, Ethereum’s ether (ETH) fell 3% over the same period, according to data from Coingecko.

(SOL vs ETH price comparison / Portfolios Lab)

Poor price performance and a lack of significant protocol improvements since Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake nearly three years ago, are two key reasons the network’s community members are fed up.

The lack of a technical leader at the Ethereum Foundation appears to be a major gripe, and former protocol researcher Danny Ryan is widely regarded as the logical successor to Miyaguchi once the leadership restructuring takes place.

“I opened dialogue with Vitalik and others at the EF about such changes and the possibility of being involved in this new era,” Ryan said. “I’m grateful for the overwhelming support I’ve received from Twitter and many longtime friends and colleagues.”

Miyaguchi has been conspicuously quiet about the vitriol piled onto her. Her last post on X on January 18 appears to indicate optimism regarding the ongoing leadership changes.

“We’ve been working on this for a year,” Miyaguchi said about the upcoming management overhaul. “I am excited to finally be able to share more news about this soon.”

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。