Eli Ben-Sasson calls for merit over alignment in Ethereum debate

Eli Ben-Sasson, cofounder of StarkWare and a founding scientist of Zcash, has shared his view on the recent debate around the Ethereum Foundation. 

His comments came as Ethereum faces questions over leadership changes, funding pressure and the role of layer-2 teams in the wider ecosystem.

Ben-Sasson said he was not joining criticism of the foundation and was not claiming that Ethereum is near its end. He also said he was not trying to defend the foundation by saying everything was fine. “Ethereum has many strengths, and it also has its politics,” he wrote.

StarkWare history frames his point

Ben-Sasson said StarkWare’s first paid project in 2019 and 2020 focused on a post-quantum secure, scalable ZK-STARK system for Ethereum. He said the work aimed to help Ethereum scale and become more ready for future quantum security risks.

He also pointed to StarkWare’s later choices, including STARKs, Cairo, zkVM work, native account abstraction and Bitcoin scaling. He said those choices were not always popular and were sometimes viewed as “misaligned.” Ben-Sasson said he was glad the team made them because he sees them as the right technical decisions.

Exits and funding worries add pressure

His comments came during a tense period for the Ethereum Foundation. As previously reported by crypto.news, Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down as co-executive director and board member after returning from a sabbatical. Her exit followed other staff changes and came after Tomasz Stańczak also left a co-executive director role.

The debate also includes funding concerns. Former Ethereum Foundation contributor Trent Van Epps warned that Ethereum core development could face a funding gap within three to nine months. He linked that risk to spending cuts and the end of the Client Incentive Program. Tom Lee later rejected that warning, saying there was “zero chance” of such a crisis.

Merit versus alignment becomes the issue

Ben-Sasson’s main point centered on how Ethereum should judge teams and ideas. He said the ecosystem placed too much weight on whether teams appeared aligned or misaligned. He argued that technical merit should matter more than social labels or political positioning.

“As part of the ecosystem and supporter of all things crypto, I hope the new system that will arise will give a lot of weight to merit and technology, and less for alignment,” Ben-Sasson wrote. 

He added that he would want to work more closely with that system if it moved in that direction.

That framing also answers past complaints that StarkWare moved outside Ethereum’s preferred path. In his view, useful engineering can start outside consensus and still become part of the broader stack later. The post did not propose a formal governance plan for the wider ecosystem.

His comments place StarkWare’s experience inside a wider Ethereum governance debate. Layer-2 teams depend on Ethereum, but they also make independent technical choices. That can create tension when foundation priorities, roadmap work and community expectations do not move at the same pace.