A prominent blockchain researcher has pushed back against mounting criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, arguing that much of the backlash stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the organization was built to do. William Mougayar, a Toronto-based investor and author, contends that the Foundation is precisely executing its mandate as a protocol steward—and that’s exactly the problem for those expecting it to act as a marketing arm for Ethereum.
According to Mougayar’s analysis, the confusion around the Foundation’s role reflects a deeper categorical error. ETH the asset, Ethereum the infrastructure, and the Ethereum Foundation as an institution operate on entirely separate tracks with distinct missions. “The asset is money. The infrastructure is shared compute. The Foundation is a non-profit that is steering the protocol toward irrelevance for its own founders,” Mougayar wrote in a post titled “Leave the Foundation Alone” on X.
That distinction matters. When critics point to the Foundation’s recent ETH sales and unstaking moves as evidence of institutional betrayal, they’re applying expectations rooted in a misreading of what the organization exists to accomplish.
The Foundation’s Core Mission: Making Itself Redundant
The Ethereum Foundation operates on what Mougayar describes as a “subtraction path”—deliberately working to become less central to the protocol’s operation over time. This means shipping technical upgrades, funding research that commercial entities won’t touch, and hardening the network’s architecture so it requires less ongoing stewardship from any single entity.
That philosophy directly contradicts what some observers want from the Foundation: public cheerleading for ETH, active institutional recruitment, and price-conscious asset management. “Expecting the EF to market ETH or court institutions is like expecting the IETF to run Super Bowl ads for TCP/IP,” Mougayar wrote, drawing a parallel to the Internet Engineering Task Force’s role in stewarding foundational internet protocols.
The criticism intensified after the Foundation completed its third over-the-counter sale in recent weeks, offloading approximately 10,000 ETH to BitMine Immersion Technologies at an average price of $2,292—worth roughly $22.9 million. Combined with earlier transactions in March and the previous week, the Foundation has divested approximately $47 million in ETH holdings to the same counterparty.
These moves were compounded by unstaking activity. The Foundation unstaked 17,035 ETH (worth around $40 million at the time) and later withdrew another 21,270 ETH from Lido, valued at nearly $50 million. Each transaction has been seized upon as evidence that the organization is positioning itself defensively or, worse, signaling a lack of confidence in Ethereum’s future.
Context Matters: Why ETH Remains Under Pressure
ETH currently trades at $2,117.09, up 4.67% over 24 hours but down 57% from its August 2021 peak of $4,953. The token’s prolonged weakness has naturally invited scrutiny of all major stakeholders—including the Foundation. In that environment, the Foundation’s treasury actions look suspicious rather than routine.
Yet Mougayar’s framing suggests that conflating the Foundation’s fiduciary decisions with ETH’s price trajectory misses the point. The Foundation’s role is protocol integrity and research funding, not asset price support. Its treasury moves—whether sales or unstaking—are decisions about capital allocation and risk management for an organization that doesn’t exist to enrich ETH holders.
The gap between expectation and reality here reveals something important about crypto governance. Many market participants expect decentralized protocols to behave like corporations with aligned incentives around asset appreciation. The Ethereum Foundation, by design, does not fit that model.
Whether that design is wise remains a fair debate. But arguing that the Foundation is failing at its job because it refuses to act as a marketing engine for ETH is, by Mougayar’s logic, a category error—like criticizing a lighthouse keeper for not selling more boats.