Crypto news

Ethereum Foundation (EF) Interim Co-Executive Director Bastian Aue has presented a detailed plan for implementing the foundation's mandate, with the issue of maximal extractable value (MEV) taking center stage. This document is a logical continuation of recent strategic posts by Vitalik Buterin and Aya Miyaguchi, which defined a new direction for the organization's development.

Aue directly stated that toxic MEV is not a secondary issue of market infrastructure, but "the next major front in the cypherpunk war." In his view, the fight against this phenomenon will become the main work of the EF, aimed at preserving Ethereum as an open, censorship-resistant, and capture-resistant infrastructure for self-sovereign users.

Five Key Threats to Network Neutrality

In his analysis, Aue identified five critical risks that, in his assessment, could undermine Ethereum's neutrality:

• privileged access to the user transaction order flow;
• cartelization of builders;
• dependence on trusted relays;
• opaque transaction routing;
• concentration of validators around a narrow chain of suppliers.

The expert emphasized that a formally open network could effectively turn into an intermediary one if users, at the moment of value transfer, depend on a limited number of infrastructure participants.

Why Encrypted Mempools Are Not a Panacea

Aue warned that individual technical solutions, such as encrypted mempools, could create new risks. They reduce transparency before transaction execution but simultaneously shift the advantage to new privileged participants, including operators of specialized hardware. He sees similar limitations in FOCIL and ePBS mechanisms: the former may enhance censorship resistance but could give rise to new forms of inter-block MEV, while the latter may reduce dependence on trusted relays but entrench the builder economy, hindering long-term solutions.

"Fighting individual manifestations of MEV in a piecemeal fashion will not solve the problem. Value extraction needs to be considered at the level of the entire system," Aue summarized.

Privacy and the Transition to ETH

The second key theme of the thread is privacy. Aue advocated for a model where unconditional confidentiality first becomes available at the base layer, with mechanisms for selective data disclosure added on top. "A public ledger without serious privacy settings by default becomes a surveillance infrastructure with settlement guarantees," he stated.

It also became known that the EF will gradually shift employee compensation and core financial relationships towards ETH and "Ethereum-native" stablecoins. This is not a symbolic gesture, but a way to test the infrastructure on itself: foundation employees must face the same problems as users — wallet UX, volatility, privacy, and payment friction.

Staking and Spinouts: New Criteria

Staking concentration is called an "infrastructure risk to the protocol." If the share of stake, liquidity, and access to validators become concentrated around a small number of issuers, Ethereum's security level could become vulnerable through the economic layer.

Regarding spinouts — projects that may leave the EF or receive external funding — Aue established strict criteria: importance to the mandate, existence of a more suitable organizational base, and absence of risks of capture or opacity. "The foundation should not fund projects out of inertia, due to personal connections, or to avoid difficult decisions," he emphasized.

This plan comes amid major personnel changes at the EF and the launch of an independent R&D lab, Ethlabs, by former foundation researchers, whose focus on MEV and basic protocol research overlaps with the described directions.

My expert opinion: Aue's plan is not just a reorganization, but a bid for a fundamental paradigm shift. Recognizing MEV as a "war front" means the EF is finally moving from rhetoric to concrete actions to protect network neutrality. However, the key challenge will remain the same: how to combat toxic MEV without stifling the innovation and liquidity that make Ethereum attractive to developers and users.