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The foundation’s executive director, Aya Miyaguchi, said it was accelerating work on a formal policy to address potential conflicts of interest after two researchers disclosed that they had received “substantial” EigenLayer token incentives.
“The Ethereum Foundation’s trusted neutrality is critical to our role in the ecosystem. We are aware of the current conversation about a potential conflict of interest and share the community’s concerns,” Miyaguchi posted to X on Friday.
“It is clear that relying on culture and individual judgment is not enough, and we have been preparing a formal policy for some time to address this issue. We will accelerate this work and will share updates soon,” Miyaguchi added.
In response, Lefteris Karapetsas, a former Ethereum software engineer and founder of cryptocurrency portfolio tracking tool Rotki, said the Ethereum Foundation should compensate its peers sufficiently so that they “don’t feel the need to look for additional compensation packages elsewhere.” He said.
Ethereum Foundation Researchers Reveal ‘Important’ EigenLayer Incentives
On May 19, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake revealed that he had received “significant” Eigen token incentives after recently becoming an advisor to the Eigen Foundation.
This disclosure followed a discourse between Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and cryptocurrency trader Jordan Fish, also known as Cobie, about a potential conflict of interest between EigenLayer and his employer, the Ethereum Foundation. This happens with the organization’s core developers and researchers taking on an advisory role. .
“The advisory comes with significant EIGEN token incentives that could be worth more than the value of all my other assets (mainly ETH) combined,” Drake said at the time. “We’re talking about vesting millions of dollars in tokens over three years.”
Ethereum Foundation researchers pledged to “reinject” all proceeds into “worthy” projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, whether through investments or donations.
The researcher also said he took on the role only on the condition that his remit would be limited to studying reclamation risks, adding that his primary public stance would continue to be critical of EigenLayer.
Two days later, fellow Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist also revealed that he had recently become an advisor to EigenLayer under the same terms as Drake. However, Feist did not mention similar investments or donation commitments in his post.
“I take this position personally, not on behalf of the Ethereum Foundation, and focus on risk and decentralization.” Feist wrote. “So I expect to have opposing views on EigenLayer.”
When Drake revealed this, he said that three people from the Ethereum Foundation had a formal relationship with EigenLayer. One is an investor and two are advisors. Assuming Feist is the other advisor Drake mentioned, investors have yet to step forward.
EigenLayer is a platform that allows users to deposit and “re-stake” Ethereum in a variety of liquid staking tokens, with the goal of allocating those funds to secure third-party networks or actively verified services.
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