As Ethereum Turns 10, Where Is the Foundation Focused Next? - Ep. 877

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe to the new Bits + Bips channels! 📺 YouTube 🎧 Podcast → Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Fountain🐦 X / Twitter Ethereum turned 10 on Wednesday, capping off a decade of trials and travails — but also triumphs. After years of being the heart of crypto’s onchain economy, Ethereum stalled last year, losing mindshare and market share to Bitcoin and Solana. During that time, some long-time supporters publicly aired frustrations with the Ethereum Foundation. Now, there’s a palpable shift in energy. In this episode, Tomasz Stanczak, the co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, reflects on the 10-year anniversary and talks about what’s ahead. From internal strategy overhauls to his plans to tackle Ethereum’s UX and developer experience, Tomasz shares how the Foundation is trying to re-center Ethereum — and why he’s betting on it for the next decade. He also lays out what he calls a “secondary roadmap,” including bold ambitions like building Ethereum into a platform for AI, machines, and even a new kind of open-source society. Thank you to our sponsors! Ledn Mantle Guest: Tomasz K. Stańczak, Co-Executive Director at the Ethereum Foundation and Founder of Nethermind Links: Unchained: Ethereum Turns 10 Years Old Tomasz’s tweet about the roadmap Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 🎉 7:46 How Tomasz is reflecting on Ethereum’s 10th birthday and its recent struggles 🧠 10:41 What Ethereum means to Tomasz and how he explains it to the normies 🏗️ 17:28 Why the Ethereum Foundation plays a different kind of role in crypto development 👔 22:59 How Tomasz ended up as co-executive director of the EF 🗣️ 27:25 What he learned from hundreds of conversations about how Ethereum could improve 🎯 29:47 Why the Foundation is now focused on three core goals 💼 36:34 How and why the EF is also embracing business development 🪙 42:40 Why Tomasz wants people minting directly on Ethereum Layer 1 📣 46:14 How the Foundation’s communication strategy has changed and why it matters 📉 52:48 Why the EF isn’t focused on ETH’s price—at least not directly 🧾 57:50 Whether the Foundation is worried about Ether’s shifting asset narrative 🔗 1:03:34 How the EF is working to fix interoperability issues within Ethereum 🏦 1:05:59 Why the Foundation sold ETH to SBET and how its treasury strategy is evolving 🏛️ 1:14:09 How Ethereum became the chain of choice for institutions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I feel that as a director or anything or as a leader, you can be stubborn and not humble and
0:07.3	think that you have best ideas and that when other people tell you something, you think
0:11.8	that you know better.
0:13.7	Or you can be humble and understand it actually, you know, in the ecosystem there's so many
0:18.8	smart people so they know better, most likely,
0:21.5	and they repeatedly tell you something that you just, your talent should be aggregating this.
0:26.6	So that's where it comes from, right? So when you understand what you'll do with RWAs,
0:33.9	with communication, with BT, then it's just responding to all of this. And being willing to do that,
0:41.0	it creates that more servant role of the executive director, rather the one that tries to build
0:47.3	the vision.
0:51.1	Hey, everyone. This week for Ethereum's 10th anniversary, we have two interviews.
0:56.0	The first one is being released today, and it's with Tomash Stauncheck, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation.
1:03.0	Tamash and I talked about a lot of things, both retrospective for Ethereum and also forward-looking.
1:08.0	One of the sections of our discussion that really struck me was about the
1:11.2	relationship between the Ethereum Foundation and the price of Ether. Chatting about Eith's price was
1:17.1	actually a big no-no during the early years of the Ethereum Foundation, and last year, it felt like
1:22.3	at least some portion of the consternation in the Ethereum community came from the underperformance of
1:28.0	ETH compared to Bitcoin and Saul. On top of that, the price of ETH, of course, has an effect
1:33.4	on security due to Ethereum's proof of stake system. But surprisingly, when I asked him about it,
1:39.2	he said the foundation doesn't touch on the price of ether except when discussing the foundation
1:43.5	treasury.
1:51.8	I guess I had expected some change in that regard since, you know, the period when my book ends,
	...

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