The Future of Ecosystem Development at the EF

Ethereum stands at a pivotal moment. Interest in Ethereum has expanded beyond technologists and enthusiasts, bringing enterprises, governments, and everyday users who seek practical solutions and tangible benefits. The Ethereum ecosystem is adapting to meet these needs, and the Ethereum Foundation is ready to play its part.

As outlined in the Ethereum Foundation’s recent vision statement, we have two key goals:

1. Maximizing the number of people who (directly or indirectly) use Ethereum, in such a way that they benefit from Ethereum’s underlying values.
2. Maximizing the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure.

Ecosystem Development (EcoDev) refers to teams that help achieve these goals at an ecosystem or social level, rather than a technology level. These teams help remove bottlenecks to real-world use, help users get onboarded to Ethereum, support Ethereum communities around the world, provide grant funding, and help steward the ecosystem so that Ethereum remains resilient and human centered as it scales.

To help us better achieve these goals, we are significantly expanding and reorganizing our EcoDev efforts to focus on four key areas.

Ecosystem Acceleration

We want to help accelerate the pace of ecosystem growth, by working closely with developers, founders, app teams, and enterprises who want to use Ethereum.

We are creating four new teams to drive impact around these key adoption pipelines:

• Enterprise relations: Clear resources and guidance tailored for businesses adopting Ethereum.
• Developer growth: Engage, guide, and support the next generation of builders on Ethereum.
• App relations & research : Accelerating meaningful, user-facing Ethereum applications.
• Founder success: Non-financial support, providing feedback, introductions, operational expertise, and mentorship.

These teams will include long-standing EF members who work in these areas (e.g. Austin Griffith in Developer Growth) and new hires to expand our skillsets and capacity.

At the core of our EcoDev acceleration efforts will be working with existing networks and community members. Ethereum has a deep ecosystem of individuals and organizations who support founders, developers, apps, and enterprises already, including L2s, accelerators, community events, hackathon organizers, investors, educators, and more.

Ecosystem Amplification

Other teams will help to amplify the impact of our acceleration efforts, as well as the EcoDev work done by the community.

These teams will help us understand and keep track of how the ecosystem is growing, run targeted events to support strategic priorities, use various forms of media to educate and tell important stories about Ethereum, and use new tools and AI to add more leverage to all of our work.

These teams are evolutions of existing teams at the EF, with the exception of EcoDev automation which is new.

• Digital Studio (formally the ethereum.org team): Our innovation and storytelling engine, crafting narrative-rich content, videos, publications, and unique visualizations showcasing Ethereum’s potential. Ethereum.org will continue to be one of many projects this team develops.
• Strategic Events: Designing targeted events, from small gatherings to niche one-day conferences.
• Ethereum Everywhere: A team focused on scaling local communities and hubs that support app builders (team name still a WIP)
• EcoDev Automation: Enhancing internal operations through intelligent automation and AI-driven tools, empowering teams to achieve more effectively.

Devcon/nect will continue as a team focused on throwing large-scale annual events for the Ethereum ecosystem like Devcon and Devconnect, but will continue working directly under the management team rather than being incorporated into the new EcoDev structure.

Ecosystem Support

We will continue to have three teams dedicated to coordinating financial and increasing non-financial support needed for initiatives across the Ethereum ecosystem:

• ESP/Grant Support: Our grants program will undergo significant changes, emphasizing more targeted applications and non-financial support. This team will support EF teams with their grant giving initiatives, help review some grant applications, and manage relationships with grantees.
• Strategic Funding Initiatives: Co-funding vital public goods organizations benefiting the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
• Launchpad: Assisting organizations with operational design, sustainable funding, governance and other challenges. Launchpad supports spin-outs from the EF, grantees, or other ecosystem organizations who could benefit from this help.

Long-Term Ecosystem Unblocking

We will also continue many long-term streams of work to remove obstacles to adoption around the world. organized into different streams including:

• Policy Coordination: Monitoring global issues relevant to the Ethereum ecosystem, identifying risks and opportunities where the EF can support, and working with policy organizations around the world to encourage positive outcomes for Ethereum.
• Institutional Secretariat: Building sustained relationships with governments and NGOs
• Academic Secretariat: Fostering collaborations with universities, professors, and students to advance blockchain technology.

It Takes an Ecosystem

As Ethereum grows, there is more work to be done by the ecosystem to support and steward that growth. We’re excited to do our part and contribute in new ways, but we won’t be alone. We’re already collaborating closely with the broader ecosystem, including organizations, companies, startups, event organizers, community members, investors, developers, and numerous other partners who drive Ethereum’s growth. If you want to work with us, get in touch James Smith!

The Ethereum ecosystem is always changing. This means our ecosystem development approaches will continue to evolve as well. We will continue to always ask: where do we need to step in to do what no one else can do today? And we will continue working to help others increase their impact on the ecosystem, so that the Ethereum ecosystem becomes more resilient over time.