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Ethereum Foundation (EF) Interim Co-Executive Director Bastian Aue has presented an ambitious plan to implement the foundation's mandate, identifying Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) as one of the key risks to the network. This document, published as an extended thread, is a direct continuation of recent strategic posts by Vitalik Buterin and Aya Miyaguchi, but now translated into concrete actions.

MEV as an Existential Threat

Aue emphasizes that combating toxic MEV is not a peripheral task of market infrastructure, but a fundamental undertaking of the Ethereum Foundation. In his assessment, MEV has the potential to become "the next major front in the cypherpunk war." The foundation intends to focus on protecting the network from censorship and capture, strengthening open source code, privacy, and security. Aue clearly stated that the EF does not exist for short-term speculators or to promote individual applications, and will not sacrifice Ethereum's core properties to attract users.

Among the specific risks that could undermine the blockchain's neutrality, Aue highlights:

• Privileged access to the user transaction order flow.
• Cartelization of builders.
• Trusted relays creating points of failure.
• Opaque transaction routing.
• Validator dependence on a narrow chain of suppliers.

He warns: a formally open network can turn into an intermediary one if users depend on a limited circle of infrastructure participants.

Encrypted Mempools: New Cure or Old Disease?

Aue acknowledges that technical solutions, such as encrypted mempools, are not a panacea. They can reduce transparency before transaction execution and, more dangerously, shift the advantage to new privileged participants, such as operators of specialized hardware. Similar caveats are made regarding FOCIL and ePBS: the former could enhance censorship resistance but give rise to new forms of inter-block MEV, while the latter could reduce reliance on relays but entrench suboptimal builder economics.

The analyst's key conclusion: targeted combat against individual manifestations of MEV is ineffective. Value extraction must be considered systematically, at the level of the entire protocol.

Privacy, Salaries in ETH, and a New Structure

The second major theme of the plan is privacy. Aue advocates for a model where unconditional confidentiality becomes the base layer, upon which mechanisms for selective data disclosure, auditing, and compliance are built. "A public ledger without serious privacy settings by default becomes a surveillance infrastructure with settlement guarantees," he states.

On a practical level, the EF will begin transitioning employee compensation and core financial relationships into ETH and "Ethereum-native" stablecoins — not as a symbolic gesture, but so that employees face the same issues as users: wallet UX, volatility, accounting, privacy, and payment friction.

Special attention is given to staking concentration, which Aue calls not just a yield-generating product, but an infrastructural risk to the protocol. If the stake share, liquidity, and governance influence become concentrated around a small number of issuers, Ethereum's security becomes vulnerable through the economic layer.

Cryptalist Expert Opinion

Aue's plan is not merely a declaration of intent, but a clear signal to the market. The Ethereum Foundation is ceasing to be a passive observer. In effect, the EF is declaring war on the parasitic MEV economy that threatens the very principle of decentralization. However, the success of this strategy will depend on the foundation's ability not only to formulate threats but also to implement technical solutions without creating new points of centralization. Aue's thread appears against the backdrop of key researchers leaving to launch an independent R&D lab, Ethlabs, indicating a deep internal crisis and restructuring within Ethereum's leadership.