Ethereum’s future at risk without clear leadership, ex-engineer warns

Ethereum’s vision appears to be so messy that it leaves EVM changes in limbo, says a former Ethereum Foundation engineer.

Frustrated by the lack of direction and stalled progress in Ethereum’s development, a former Solidity expert and compiler engineer claims there is a “lack of a clear and cohesive vision” for Ethereum (ETH) and the Ethereum Virtual Machine, making progress in the latter “impossible.”

This is why I left the Ethereum Foundation.

There is a lack of a clear and cohesive vision for Ethereum and EVM, making progress in EVM impossible.

I’ve seen EVM changes repeatedly shut down because they don’t check a certain box. The issue is that everyone has a different… https://t.co/TkAngYnycX

— Hari (@_hrkrshnn) March 14, 2025

In an X post on Friday, March 14, Harikrishnan Mulackal, the former Solidity expert at the Ethereum Foundation, revealed that the confusion has led to constant disagreements about how to move forward, with critical changes repeatedly blocked.

“The issue is that everyone has a different opinion on what these checkboxes should be, each contradicting the other. So nobody can agree on any changes. There was a single change in the EVM in the last five years (transient storage), and it almost got shut down at the last minute and did not make it!”

Harikrishnan Mulackal

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Less research, more products

According to Mulackal, Ethereum needs more decisive leadership. He suggested that without this improvement, the only feasible path is “ossification — no more changes.” He also argued that Ethereum should focus on shipping updates faster and “less on research.” He also suggested that the ecosystem should be way more ambitious, saying “we must ship one hard fork each quarter.”

He also warned that without a shift in approach, Ethereum could face a bleak future, pointing out that if the network continues as it has for the past five years, it “will produce exactly the same result.”

As crypto.news reported earlier, Ethereum seems to be caught up in a few issues lately. The Ethereum Foundation’s ongoing sales of ETH and the cryptocurrency’s relatively modest price movement could be holding it back. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and other tokens have not only reached their previous all-time highs but have also set new ones.

Read more: Bitcoin death cross signals further downside as S&P 500 nears bearish pattern

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