Two Ethereum Foundation researchers have unveiled their ties with EigenLayer. Dankrad Feist and Justin Drake recently became advisors to the restaking protocol. Both of them clarified that they were not representing the Ethereum Foundation and have taken up these positions personally.
Feist revealed that he received a “significant amount of tokens” from this position, while Drake further elaborated,
“The advisorship comes with a significant EIGEN token incentive which could easily be worth more than the combined value of all my other assets (mostly ETH). We're talking millions of dollars of tokens vesting over 3 years.”
Both the researchers will continue to prioritize Ethereum, and in the event of any conflict of interest, they will put Ethereum first, and will not hesitate to quit if EigenLayer goes in a direction that’s against Ethereum’s interest.
Drake has pledged to reinject all advisorship proceeds towards “worthy projects'' within the Ethereum ecosystem. That would either be in the form of investments or donations. Meanwhile, Feist did not claim to follow the same path.
Restaking, when implemented well, would significantly benefit the Ethereum ecosystem. However, there are several risk factors also that are a part of the equation. Feist elaborated on both sides in his post on X and asserted that he would have never taken up this position if he did not see significant benefits to Ethereum.
Crypto Community Backfires
Community members continue to remain salty about both the researchers' decisions. A trader with the username ‘safetyth1rd,’ for instance, questioned Feist,
“your [You’re] seriously stating that taking huge compensation from an organization with different incentives than Ethereum will not influence your decision making??? You realize we’re not five year olds right?”
In fact, Jordan Fish, aka Cobie, went on to ask Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin directly how he felt about core developers or researchers accepting life-changing packages from projects built on Ethereum to become advisors. He further went on to darken the conflict of interest tangent as well.
