Ethereum Foundation Formalizes Key Values of Project and Its Role in Its Development

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) Board published an official document titled EF Mandate, which outlines the organization’s core principles and goals. The document is intended to serve as a guideline for the future development of the Ethereum ecosystem and to formalize the project’s fundamental values.

According to the organization, the document serves several purposes at once — acting as “part constitution, part manifesto, and part guide” for the EF itself. It defines which responsibilities the foundation must fulfill and which actions it should avoid in order to preserve the project’s original mission.

The text emphasizes that Ethereum was originally conceived as a system in which users can interact with each other without handing control over their data and funds to centralized entities. Since first emerging as a protocol concept, the project has grown into a global technological movement built on the idea of open and free digital systems.

The new document from the Ethereum Foundation also establishes basic requirements for Ethereum, including:

• censorship resistance;
• fully open-source code;
• a focus on user privacy;
• security.

These four core principles are summarized in the acronym CROPS (Censorship Resistant, Open Source, Private, Secure). The foundation stresses that abandoning these characteristics for the sake of convenience or faster development is unacceptable, as they’re precisely what make Ethereum valuable to users and developers.

The foundation believes that formalizing these principles is especially important at the current stage. As digital services become increasingly closed and artificial intelligence and centralized platforms gain more control over user data, the importance of open networks like Ethereum continues to grow.

The document isn’t binding for the entire ecosystem, it’s primarily intended for the foundation itself and serves as a public statement of its principles and role.

The Ethereum Foundation also notes that it’s no longer the sole center of the network’s development. While the foundation previously acted as the main steward of the ecosystem, it’s now only one participant within a broader system of projects, communities, and developers. Within the EF, this system is referred to as the “Infinite Garden,” an ecosystem of initiatives aimed at creating open, resilient, and independent digital infrastructures.