Researcher Defends Ethereum Foundation After ETH Sales

William Mougayar, a Toronto-based blockchain researcher and investor, posted on X under the headline “Leave the Foundation Alone,” defending the Ethereum Foundation after recent ETH sales and unstaking. He described the nonprofit as focused on technical stewardship of the protocol rather than on promoting the token.

The Foundation completed three over-the-counter sales this month, totaling roughly 25,000 ETH. One transaction moved 10,000 ETH to BitMine Immersion Technologies at an average price near $2,292. The combined sales amount to about $47 million. The group also unstaked 17,035 ETH and removed 21,270 ETH from the staking service Lido, a combined total of 38,305 ETH with on-chain valuations of roughly $40 million and $50 million for each action, respectively.

Mougayar urged the community to separate the roles of the asset, the network and the nonprofit. He wrote that “the asset is money. The infrastructure is shared compute. The Foundation is a non-profit” and argued that confusing those roles has led to misplaced anger and inaccurate predictions. He said the Foundation is on a “subtraction path,” adding that “It is hardening the protocol so the world does not need it so much. It is shipping upgrades. It is funding the research that nobody else funds.”

Some members of the Ethereum community have criticized the Foundation’s sales, unstaking and public communications, saying those actions have hurt ETH’s market performance. At the time of Mougayar’s post, Ether traded near $2,117, up about 4.7% on the day but down more than 57% from its all-time high near $4,953 recorded in August of the previous year.

Mougayar rejected expectations that the Foundation should market ETH or actively court institutional investors, likening such demands to asking the Internet Engineering Task Force to run Super Bowl ads for TCP/IP. He called for clearer distinctions between token holders, network operators and the nonprofit that funds and coordinates protocol work.

The Ethereum Foundation is a nonprofit that funds research, coordinates protocol upgrades and supports development. Its stated mandate centers on the technical maintenance and long-term health of the Ethereum protocol rather than direct market intervention.