Ethereum Foundation researchers Dankrad Feist and Justin Drake have put a full stop to their advisory roles at EigenLayer.
Background
- In May this year, Feist and Drake became advisors to the restaking protocol
- Both of them clarified that they were not representing the Ethereum Foundation and had taken up these positions personally
- At the time, the researchers affirmed that they would continue to prioritize Ethereum, and in the event of any conflict of interest, would put Ethereum first
- People from the community remained skeptical about the developers’ decision
- They time and again darkened the conflict of interest tangent
Details
- Now, Drake unveiled that he stepped away from the Eigen Foundation adviser position towards the end of Q3
- He also left the Ultra Sound team
- Rather than taking on roles in other projects, Drake said he should have instead focused his time and effort on developing Ethereum’s L1 network — especially its consensus layer
- Parallelly, even Feist announced his advisorship resignation
Why should you pay attention?
- Drake affirmed that going forward he will turn down all advisorships, angel investments, and security councils
- In retrospect, personal policy goes above and beyond the recent Ethereum Foundation-wide conflict of interest policy, he said
- When he joined the Eigen Foundation, Drake pledged to reinject all advisorship proceeds towards “worthy projects'' within the Ethereum ecosystem
- That would either be in the form of investments or donations, he had clarified
- Feist, however, did not claim to follow the same path
- Now, Drake revealed that he “didn’t make anything” from this advisorship
- His advisorship was terminated before any of his EIGEN tokens had been vested
Who said what?
- Highlighting his commitment to neutrality, Drake said,
“In September I let go of the Eigen Foundation advisorship. I want to apologize to the Ethereum community and EF colleagues for the drama I caused. In hindsight it was a bad move for me to make”
Zooming out
- Feist asserted that there is “a lot of important work to do” with respect to Ethereum
- That includes the effective implementation of Danksharding and other crucial updates
