Author: Zen, PANews
A long-hidden internal letter has once again put the Ethereum Foundation (EF) in the spotlight.
On October 20, Péter Szilágyi, a former Ethereum core developer and main maintainer of the Geth client, published a letter to the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) in May last year, which once again aroused widespread criticism of EF in the community.
After Péter ignited the criticism of EF, Polygon co-founder and Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwa and Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje also expressed dissatisfaction, disappointment, and doubt. After Sandeep published a lengthy article, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also responded and "appeased" him with a post.
Péter Szilágyi: Counting the Ethereum Foundation’s “Three Sins”
As a veteran Ethereum core developer, Péter Szilágyi’s feud with EF is not the first time it has been made public. In June of this year, Péter Szilágyi and EF officially parted ways.
Péter claims he was offered approximately $5 million to spin off Geth, Ethereum's most popular execution layer client, from EF into a private company, but he declined the offer. He also claims to have discovered that EF was secretly funding another Geth team, intentionally undermining and marginalizing the original one. Péter claims he was fired shortly after discovering this.
In this open letter, Péter reveals further details of EF's exploitation. He claims that the "leader" persona he was given at EF was merely "perceived leadership," a symbol of diverse perspectives in public, but held no real power in private decision-making. When he publicly opposed powerful figures or conflicts of interest, he damaged both his reputation and that of Geth, while also failing to change course.
In Péter's view, the primary reason for Ethereum's failure is that, despite its lofty ambitions, it was easily swayed by the allure of money and abandoned its principles without hesitation. "I'm glad you built an empire for us. Now step aside and let those who can make us money lead us," he wrote, expressing his disappointment with the money-driven culture on social media.
On the other hand, EF is overly stingy with its employees, chronically suppressing salaries. Péter reported that his total pre-tax compensation for his first six years at EF (2015-2021) was $625,000, with zero bonuses. This level of salary is typically just entry-level at major US companies and in high-paying cities. Meanwhile, ETH's market capitalization has soared from zero to $450 billion. Péter claims that the underpaid "worker" situation at EF has improved in the past two years. This may also be related to the Protocol Guild, a funder of Ethereum core developers established in 2022 to address gaps in developer compensation.
Finally, he believes that Ethereum has formed a "top ruling elite" around Vitalik - Vitalik's attention, donations and investments almost determine which projects will succeed. As a result, many new projects bypass public offerings and instead strive for the support or advisors of the 5 to 10 core opinion leaders and the 1 to 3 VCs behind them. From the media to the research network, they "sing in unison" with each other, and the opportunities for ecological development are completely dominated by the relationship network.
Péter believes that the above-mentioned problems of EF are already terminal and difficult to reverse: the foundation has exhausted the community's loyalty to it, and the elite circle around Vitalik will not give up power.
Continuing to ferment: Sandeep's disappointment and AC's questioning
After forwarding Peter's long post, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwa also took the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with EF and the community.
Sandeep expressed his doubts about his loyalty to Ethereum, believing it was worth addressing publicly. Similar to core developers like Péter Szilágyi, who have made significant contributions to Ethereum, Sandeep believes that Polygon has made significant infrastructure and ecosystem contributions to Ethereum, yet has long lacked recognition and support from Ethereum Foundation and its core community. Instead, it has been marginalized and questioned as a true Ethereum Layer 2.
Sandeep explained that Polygon, out of loyalty, has long insisted on positioning itself as Ethereum's Layer 2, rather than as an independent Layer 1. This has significantly compromised Polygon's narrative and prevented it from earning the recognition premium it deserves from the ecosystem. He noted that if Polygon had shifted to a Layer 1 narrative, its valuation could have increased by two to five times.
"The Ethereum community needs to take a serious look at itself," Sandeep also criticized the Ethereum community, pointing out that Ethereum contributors like Péter Szilágyi were forced to question or even regret their loyalty to Ethereum, and the community also "made an indelible contribution."
Taking advantage of this controversy, Yearn and Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje (AC) directly published a statement questioning where EF's funding went.
AC stated that he has been building on Ethereum for years, burning over 700 ETH on infrastructure deployment alone. However, repeated attempts to contact EF have yielded no response, with "no business connections, no funding, no support, not even a retweet." He questioned: If EF doesn't support core clients/developers, nor does it support leading L2s, then who is actually receiving the funding?
It's worth noting that, taking advantage of the Ethereum frenzy, Solana co-founders Toly and Raj used the comments sections of AC and Sandeep, respectively, to recruit them to join the Solana ecosystem. Someone pointed out to Raj a news report in which Sandeep described Solana as having no future, to which Raj simply replied, "Everything is forgivable."
Vitalik responded: To clear Sandeep's name, only talk about product technology
Faced with the overwhelming public opinion, Vitalik Buterin responded to Sandeep's remarks.
Vitalik first positively affirmed the long-term contributions of Sandeep and Polygon, including hosting Polymarket, one of the few truly "non-pure financial" popular dApps with positive externalities for society, hosting many applications with high scalability requirements, and investing heavily in ZK-EVM in the early days to promote the zero-knowledge proof ecosystem.
Vitalik also praised Sandeep, the leader who pushed for this initiative, for his moral compliments. He mentioned that after he donated SHIB to the Indian anti-epidemic fund, Sandeep voluntarily "returned" approximately $190 million to Vitalik to use for the Balvi Foundation's open-source research project on combating airborne pathogens. This, Vitalik believed, was crucial, accelerating relevant public health progress.
Apart from this, Vitalik did not respond to any EF-related topics, but instead focused on products and technology.
He said he understood that Polygon had to undertake the most difficult exploration period in the early days, but now the ecosystem has formed a pattern of "L2 team" and "ZK team" each specializing in their own areas. He personally hopes that Polygon can directly adopt mature, ready-made ZK technology on the PoS chain as soon as possible, so as to obtain the stronger security guarantee of Ethereum L1.
Vitalik's response felt like a precise "technical appeasement"—he affirmed the value of contributors while deftly avoiding core questions about EF's governance structure and resource allocation. This may temporarily calm Sandeep's personal emotions, but it will hardly quench the deeper concerns ignited by this controversy.
This controversy, sparked by an old letter, ultimately became a mirror, reflecting the governance paradox that Ethereum must face after its enormous success: how to find a new balance between scale and power, ideals and reality.
“Let’s wait and see what the future holds,” Peter wrote at the end of his letter. This statement isn’t just a personal sentiment; it’s a poignant question about the future of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
