Core developers of Ethereum: Ethereum enters institutional inheritance period or faces fund redistribution challenges

Trent VanEpps, a former member of the Ethereum Foundation and core developer of Ethereum, released a long article analyzing the evolution of Ethereum's institutional structure and discussing its future political and economic path and "institutional inheritance" issues. It pointed out that Ethereum is currently entering a critical institutional transition stage: including legal allocation, evolution of governance structure and potential agreement funding crisis. The Ethereum Foundation has long pursued the concept of "subtraction", which is to reduce its own centralized influence in the ecology and allow more value to be generated in the external ecology. However, this strategy not only reduces the concentration of power, but also brings about "legal boundaries" The problem of unclear "makes it difficult for the ecology to naturally generate alternative institutional centers. On the funding level, Ethereum is approaching a potential "structural funding gap", including the end of the Agreed Incentive Plan (CIP) in 2026 and the contraction cycle after the foundation's ETH reserves are depleted, which may cause core development funding to drop to approximately $30 million. Long-term pressure. Without continuous funding mechanism support, core development teams and infrastructure capabilities may face the risk of loss, which may affect the long-term reliability of the network and may create an "unfunded agreement burden." After completing its early historical mission, the role of the Ethereum Foundation is shifting from a "single leading institution" to an "institutional transition node". The key issue in the next stage of the ecology will be how to complete the smooth inheritance from existing institutions to new governance structures.