Buterin Explains Ethereum’s New Chapter

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has introduced its new “EF Mandate,” which is meant to serve as a constitution, manifesto, and operational guide for the ecosystem. 

Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has stated that the Foundation is doubling down on Ethereum’s original value proposition in his statement on the X social media network. 

He pushed back against the idea that the network needs to cater to every passing trend, instead defining it as a defensive tool for global users.

Buterin noted that the Foundation must act as a specific type of guardian within the broader ecosystem. “The Ethereum Foundation is a steward of Ethereum—the original steward, and today, the steward specifically dedicated to preserving and expanding the above aspects of Ethereum,” he explained.

The ‘CROPS’ Framework

The EF Mandate introduces the CROPS framework to organize its vision. This represents the non-negotiable principles the Foundation will prioritize moving forward (censorship, capture resistance, open source, privacy, and security). 

“At the Ethereum protocol layer, we focus on decentralization, verifiability, inclusion guarantees, protocol liveness, security, and privacy first and foremost,” Buterin stated. 

The ‘Walkaway Test’ and the ‘Zero Option’

Buterin distances Ethereum from competing blockchains that chase immediate, corporate use cases. He argues that Ethereum must pass the “walkaway test.”He offered a pointed critique of rival networks: “‘We do X to specialize to serve the use cases of today, if more use cases appear later, we will continue to keep adding more EIPs for them later’ is logic fit for many other blockchains whose names you hear often on this forum, but we do not believe it is logic fit for a decentralization-first blockchain like Ethereum.”