Ethereum’s internal strife has come to light after one of its most prominent developers, Nick Conner, announced his departure, signaling a possible crisis in the blockchain community.
Conner took to X (formerly Twitter) yesterday to announce that he was exiting the Ethereum ecosystem by saying, “I am no longer a dot eth.” The “dot eth” suffix, derived from the Ethereum Name Service, is often seen as a badge of loyalty among Ethereum advocates.
Conner’s departure is seen by many as the latest in a series of setbacks for Ethereum, which has struggled to keep up with rivals like Solana, XRP, and Bitcoin over the past year. Despite initial optimism surrounding the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs), ETH’s price performance has lagged behind its peers, with speculation even emerging that XRP could overtake Ethereum to become the second-largest cryptocurrency.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, called Conner’s departure a “bad sign” for Ethereum’s future.
Nick Conner’s contributions to Ethereum are significant. He co-authored EIP-1559, a groundbreaking update to the Ethereum protocol that revamped the transaction fee model. However, Conner cited a growing dissonance between Ethereum’s leadership and the broader community as the primary reason for his departure.
In another positive development, Lido and P2P.org founder Konstantin Lomashuk recently announced the establishment of a “Second Foundation” aimed at supporting Ethereum’s ecosystem. The foundation was also named “Second Foundation.”
*This is not investment advice.
