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Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Goes On Offense Amid Major Leadership Shake-up
It’s been a rough year for the Ethereum Foundation, the grant-giving nonprofit that helps support Ethereum, the best-known blockchain behind Bitcoin. As Ethereum loses market cap and mindshare to competitors, the foundation has been beset by scandal. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder and chief figurehead, has laid out a new plan to right the ship.
«We are indeed currently in the process of large changes to EF leadership structure, which has been ongoing for close to a year,» Buterin said in an X post. «Some of this has already been executed on and made public, and some is still in progress.»
In his X post outlining the changes, Buterin listed a series of goals, including improving the «technical expertise within EF leadership» and improving «two-way communications and ties between EF leadership and the ecosystem actors» that it supports.
According to Buterin, the changes won’t be designed to centralize, corporatize or politicize the foundation. The organization won’t suddenly «[s]tart aggressively lobbying regulators and powerful political figures,» he said, nor would it «[b]ecome an arena for vested interests […] or even more of a ‘main character’ within Ethereum.»
The shake-up comes as Ethereum’s reputation among builders has soured in recent months. Members of the broader crypto community are flocking to fast and cheap competitors like Solana, which has been quicker to accommodate the recent memecoin fervor.
Some say Ethereum has lagged because it lacks an organizing vision — something the foundation, while not «in charge» of Ethereum, might have helped remedy.
Over the past 12 months, the foundation has been mired in controversy. It has weathered accusations of being ineffectual, yet also too powerful. Conflict-of-interest scandals haven’t helped, either: Payments from private companies to foundation employees recently sparked wide backlash and forced the organization to update its policies.
Some have blamed Aya Miyaguchi, the foundation’s executive director since 2018, for the foundation’s woes. Amid a pressure campaign for Miyaguchi’s removal, Buterin has stepped in as the Ethereum Foundation’s sole decision-maker. «The person deciding the new EF leadership team is me,» he stated on X. «One of the goals of the ongoing reform is to give the EF a ‘proper board’, but until that happens it’s me.»
Miyaguchi, however, has not been ousted from the foundation. Buterin lambasted some of her critics on X, accusing them of using her as a «scapegoat.» In multiple tweets, Buterin highlighted certain particularly inflammatory social media comments — including death threats and explicit calls for more bullying of Miyaguchi — and called them «pure evil.»
«If you ‘keep the pressure on’, then you are creating an environment that is actively toxic to top talent,» Buterin wrote. «Some of Ethereum’s best devs have been messaging me recently, expressing their disgust with the social media environment that people like you are creating. YOU ARE MAKING MY JOB HARDER.»
Tether is about to enter the $25 billion crypto artificial intelligence sector, according to a post by its CEO Paolo Ardoino on X.
Tether AI, according to Ardoino, is a “fully open-source AI runtime, capable of adapting and evolving on any hardware and device, no API keys, no central point of failure, fully modular and composable, WDK-infused to enable USDT and Bitcoin payments.”
WDK is Tether’s Wallet Development Kit, a modular software development kit that enables businesses and developers to integrate non-custodial wallets and user experiences for Bitcoin and USDT across any app, website, or device, Ardoino explained in a November post on X.
On its Tether.ai website, Tether says its AI platform will integrate Keet, a peer-to-peer chat platform. Not much else is known about Tether’s AI initiative.
CoinGecko’s index of AI tokens is trading flat after the announcement.
Crypto traders aiming to profit from a volatility surge should watch the Binance-listed ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio, which could soon experience wild swings, according to a key indicator called Bollinger Bands.
Bollinger Bands are volatility bands placed two standard deviations above and below the 20-day simple moving average of an asset’s price.
The so-called Bollinger band squeeze occurs when the bands contract tightly around the price, suggesting low volatility and a period of consolidation. The market typically builds energy during the squeeze, which is eventually released in either direction, leading to a volatility explosion.
The Bollinger Bands on the ETH-BTC chart are now the tightest they have been since June 2020, according to TradingView.
The squeeze indicates that ether could soon experience increased volatility against BTC. Traders watch closely to see which way the price breaks out of the bands because, often, the big move happens in the same direction.
The volatility bullish signal comes as Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, which aims to improve the blockchain’s scalability and validator operations and may sput market activity.
The impending upgrade, due May 7, greatly increases the maximum ETH a validator can stake, from 32 ETH up to 2,048 ETH. It also raises the number of «blob» data units per block from 3 to 6, allowing for a maximum of 9. Additionally, the upgrade will start the transition to the EVM Object Format (EOF), a new structure designed to make smart contracts more efficient.
«Layer-2 networks stand to benefit the most. By doubling blob capacity and making call data more expensive, Pectra solidifies blobs as the standard for rollup data posting. This reinforces Ethereum’s role as a data availability layer and strengthens its rollup-centric scaling strategy,» analytics firm Nansen said in a report shared with CoinDesk.
«DeFi will also see a lift,» the firm noted, saying, NFTs and blockchain games may benefit from the broader improvements.
Donald Trump is pushing back against claims that he’s profiting from the TRUMP memecoin, his official cryptocurrency that launched days before his presidential inauguration.
Chainalysis recently reported that the TRUMP token earned $900,000 in fees in a two day span for its backers.
The wallets of the largest holders of the token are controlled by CIC Digital LLC, an entity also used for his NFT collection, and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which is co-owned by CIC Digital. Collectively, they own 80% of the TRUMP tokens.
“I’m not profiting from anything,” Trump said during an interview with NBC News, adding that he hadn’t looked at the token’s performance and that any financial benefits would be incidental. “If I own stock in something, and I do a good job, and the stock market goes up, I guess I’m profiting,” he said.
The TRUMP token has seen strong market activity in recent weeks. It’s currently trading around $11.20, a significant drop from its all-time high of $44.19, but still up 20% over the past month.
Recently, the White House announced that the largest 220 holders of the $TRUMP token would be invited for dinner with the President.
Eric Trump, the son of President Trump, will be a headline speaker at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.
Tether Enters AI Arena With Tether.AI
Ether-Bitcoin ‘Squeeze’ Hints at Imminent Volatility as Ethereum Pectra Upgrade Nears
Donald Trump Denies Claims of Profiting From TRUMP Token
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