Ethereum’s Leadership Crisis: Vision Questioned Amid Growing Competition

Ethereum faces mounting scrutiny as industry report exposes leadership fractures and unclear roadmap

The Foundation's Silence Speaks Volumes

Developers express frustration over delayed upgrades while competitors gain ground. Network congestion persists despite repeated promises of scaling solutions. Vitalik Buterin's recent appearances fail to address core community concerns about Ethereum's long-term direction.

Technical Debt Mounts

Proof-of-work transition remains incomplete while newer chains launch with cleaner architectures. Gas fees continue punishing users despite multiple layer-2 solutions. The ecosystem fragments as projects hedge bets with multi-chain deployments.

Market Confidence Wavers

Institutional investors quietly diversify portfolios beyond ETH. Trading volume migrates to faster chains with predictable costs. The 'ultrasound money' narrative struggles against practical user experience issues.

Yet true believers maintain Ethereum's network effects will ultimately prevail—proving once again that in crypto, faith often trumps fundamentals.

In brief

• A groundbreaking study reveals unease at the heart of the Ethereum ecosystem, where technology alone is no longer sufficient to unite.
• Project Mirror highlights a perception crisis fueled by an absent or overly complex narrative.
• Five major tensions weaken Ethereum, including unclear leadership, lack of support for creators, and an ambiguous role for layer 1.
• The psychology of actors weighs as much as price in Ethereum’s dynamics, according to the study’s researchers.

An ecosystem losing its narrative bearings

The study “Project Mirror”, conducted between March and June, set out to capture the perception of the Ethereum ecosystem at one of its most critical moments, as the crypto just regained the top spot in USDT.

According to the Ethereum Foundation’s own words, the goal was to “understand how different audiences perceive Ethereum, identify challenges and strengths, and feed that back to the ecosystem so we can learn from it.”

0/ Earlier this year the EF commissioned Project Mirror: a DEEP dive into perceptions of Ethereum.

The goal was to understand how different audiences view Ethereum, identifying challenges and strengths, and reflect those back to the ecosystem so that we can learn from them.

Conducted by Valeria Salazar and Jill Gunter, the study relied on 60 qualitative interviews covering the entire community, in a difficult market context, with ETH fluctuating between $1,600 and $2,500 and hitting a three-year low in April.

The conclusions of the report reveal five major tensions weakening the perception of the Ethereum network. These weaknesses do not stem from technology, but from how the ecosystem tells its story, or fails to tell it. Here are the report’s main findings :

• An absent or overly complex narrative : the researchers state that “without price dynamics or a simple narrative, Ethereum’s sophisticated vision appears brilliant but unreadable.” ;

• An ambiguous role of Ethereum layer 1 : as Layer 2s absorb users and activity, Ethereum’s fundamental role becomes unclear ;

• Insufficient institutional communication : the project lacks a clear and coherent message capable of uniting developers and users around a shared vision ;

• A challenge in reconciling neutrality and leadership : the desire to remain neutral sometimes prevents the Ethereum Foundation from defining a strong and clear direction ;

• Support deemed too weak for ecosystem players : some testimonials highlight a lack of structure, incentives, and guidance for those building on Ethereum.

Taken together, these elements highlight a crisis of narrative and strategic positioning, weakening Ethereum’s ability to attract talent, capital, and new crypto projects, despite an always technically advanced architecture.

When price becomes the dominant narrative

Price dynamics remain the main driver of the perceived narrative in the crypto ecosystem. “In crypto, price makes the narrative, and stagnation is perceived as a form of immobility,” note the researchers. In other words, no matter the technical advances: if the ETH price remains flat, the dominant perception will be of a project losing momentum.

This point is all the more marked as the study was conducted at a time when ETH struggled to regain upward momentum, despite active development on the long-term roadmap.

The researchers do not offer solutions, but open the debate : should the ecosystem leadership be redefined? Can success indicators other than price be designed? How to make a complex vision more accessible without diluting it ?

They emphasize the need to open collective reflection, particularly on how to support developers, unite users, and better embody Ethereum’s vision in a narrative understandable by all.

While ETH reached a new ATH at $4,950, this temporary improvement should not mask the structural vulnerabilities identified by the study. While price dynamics can temporarily silence critics, they do not replace a clear, shared, and embodied vision. This report invites thinking about Ethereum beyond technology and the market, placing at the heart of the project what is sorely missing today: a strong narrative, a unifying communication strategy, and the ability to engage the community in something other than the price curve.

Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.