The Ethereum Foundation (EF) recently formed the “Silviculture Society,” an external advisory group tasked with upholding Ethereum’s core values. This action coincides with several significant events that have recently occurred in the Ethereum ecosystem.
JUST IN: @ETHEREUMFNDNFOUNDATION ANNOUNCED THE FORMATION OF THE SILVICULTURE SOCIETY, A GROUP OF EXTERNAL INDIVIDUALS WHO PROVIDE INFORMAL COUNSEL TO THE FOUNDATION AND TO SUSTAIN THE CORE VALUES OF OPEN SOURCE, PRIVACY, SECURITY AND CENSORSHIP RESISTANCE — BSCN Headlines (@BSCNheadlines) February 28, 2025
Silviculture Society: Keeping Ethereum’s Ideals Intact
The Ethereum Foundation aims to guarantee that open source, privacy, security, and censorship resistance are maintained in a world that is becoming increasingly centralized. They have thus gathered a team of professionals from various backgrounds to offer advice and direction. Along with developers, the group comprises project founders and researchers who have demonstrated a commitment to these principles. Matthew Green, a professor of cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, is among the members of this group. Furthermore, involved in the project is Lefteris Karapetsas, the creator of Rotki—a program safeguarding user privacy in decentralized finance. With leaders like them, the Silviculture Society is expected to provide an objective viewpoint on the various EF policies moving forward.
Donations for Legal Defense
On the other hand, EF has recently also shown support for developer freedom by sponsoring Alexey Pertsev, one of the Tornado Cash developers, with a $1.25 million donation. Pertsev is currently under legal scrutiny regarding the usage of the platform for cryptocurrency transactions. This action supports the Ethereum Foundation’s stance in safeguarding the rights of developers in the crypto world and user privacy. The Tornado Cash case is quite controversial. Mixing funds from various sources makes the platform, intended to enhance transaction privacy, difficult to monitor. Meanwhile, authorities view it as a potential tool for money laundering. This situation serves as a reminder to the crypto community that existing regulations often conflict with technological innovation.
Leadership Shift at the Ethereum Foundation
Furthermore, the foundation is undergoing a leadership change. Aya Miyaguchi announced her resignation from the Executive Director position on February 25, 2025, and will be transitioning to a new role as the President of the organization. For years, Miyaguchi has been the face of the Ethereum Foundation, guiding numerous community projects. This new leadership raises the question of whether the Ethereum Foundation will experience significant policy changes. Although a clear answer is yet unknown, many hope that her new position will continue to benefit the Ethereum community.
EF Fund Movement
Apart from internal dynamics and external policies, the Ethereum Foundation maintains careful management and distribution of its resources. According to our prior report, the foundation had deployed $120 million worth of ETH to several decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including Spark, Aave, and Compound. Using a multi-sig wallet, the Ethereum Foundation transferred 30,800 ETH—valued at $81.6 million—to Aave from that total. Two stages of the transfer were completed; the main market of Aave received the largest share, 20,800 ETH valued at $55 million. Aave Prime received 10,000 ETH, or $26 million, in the meantime. This move reveals that the foundation is actively optimizing its assets in the decentralized finance ecosystem rather than merely passively storing them. This could also suggest that they wish to support various initiatives or experiments they are conducting using DeFi lending services.
Meanwhile, as of press time, ETH is trading at about $2,181.43, up 2.78% over the last 24 hours, but still in a 7-day correction of 20.16%.