Buterin Calls Ethereums High-TPS Race A Route to Mediocrity as Capital Rotates to Hyperliquid and Zcash
The EF, Buterin reminded readers, holds only about 0.16% of total ETH supply, valued at roughly $408 million — a fraction of what comparable foundations on other chains control. Its original mandate, defined in the 2014 token-sale documents, was completed in 2022 with the Merge. It “was not designed to be an eternal steward.” Interim co-executive director Bastian Aue, who took over from Tomasz Stańczak in February, is executing the transition. Aya Miyaguchi moved into the president role in early 2025. Buterin emphasized that his own influence on the expanded board “will continue to decrease, which is honestly what I want.” The rejection of the throughput arms race The most pointed passage was Buterins explicit dismissal of the high-TPS roadmap that has come to define competitor L1s including Solana, BNB Chain, and the newer entrant Tempo. “Being as fast and as scalable as possible, and only a small epsilon more decentralized than the others, is a route to mediocrity,” he wrote, “and if we try it we will lose.” Instead, Buterin laid out three technical priorities he wants Ethereum to be “deeply impressive” at: provably bug-free Ethereum via AI-assisted formal verification, which he said has shifted from impossible to plausible “in the last six months”;
