Eli Ben-Sasson, the founder of StarkWare and the founding scientist of Zcash, shared his opinion in a recent discussion around the Ethereum Foundation.
Summary
- Eli Ben-Sasson said that Ethereum should weigh convenience and technology more than debates on ecosystem maintenance.
- His comments followed the exit of the Foundation and warnings about pressure on development in the coming months.
- StarkWare’s past choices in STARKs, Cairo and zkVM were once considered misguided by critics.
His comments came as Ethereum faced questions about leadership changes, financial pressures and the role of lay-2 teams in the wider ecosystem.
Ben-Sasson said that he does not meet the criticism of the foundation and that he could not say that Ethereum is close to its end. He also said that he is not trying to defend the base by saying that everything is fine. “Ethereum has a lot of power, and it has its own politics,” he wrote.
The history of StarkWare makes his point
Ben-Sasson said that StarkWare’s first paid project in 2019 and 2020 is focused on the secure post-quantum, scalable ZK-STARK system for Ethereum. He said the work aims to help Ethereum scale and is better prepared for future quantum security risks.
He also pointed to StarkWare’s latest picks, including STARKs, Cairo, the zkVM project, native account issuance and Bitcoin scaling. He said those options are not always popular and are sometimes considered “wrong.” Ben-Sasson said he was happy the team made them because he saw them as the right technical decisions.
Going out and worrying about finances adds to the stress
His comments came at a difficult time for the Ethereum Foundation. As previously reported by crypto.news, Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down as director and board member after returning from sabbatical. His exit follows other personnel changes and comes after Tomasz Stańczak also left the role of chief executive.
The debate also includes financial concerns. Former Ethereum Foundation donor Trent Van Epps has warned that Ethereum’s core development could face a funding gap within three to nine months. He linked that risk to cost cutting and the end of the Client Incentive Program. Tom Lee later rejected that warning, saying there was “no chance” of such a disaster.
Fit and alignment become an issue
Ben-Sasson’s main point focuses on how Ethereum should judge groups and ideas. He said that the ecosystem places a lot of weight on whether groups seem compatible or not. He argued that technical merit should be more important than social labels or political position.
“As part of the ecosystem and a supporter of all things crypto, I hope that the new system that will emerge will give more weight to merit and technology, and less to syncretize,” wrote Ben-Sasson.
He added that he would like to cooperate more with that program if it goes in that direction.
That framework also addresses previous complaints that StarkWare has moved outside of Ethereum’s preferred path. In his view, useful engineering can start without consensus and become part of a wider stack later. This position did not propose a formal management plan for the wider ecosystem.
His comments put StarkWare’s experience in the middle of the broader Ethereum governance debate. Layer-2 teams depend on Ethereum, but also make independent technical decisions. That can create tension when fundamental priorities, roadmap work and public expectations are not moving at the same pace.
