Zcash Cofounder Shares Unfiltered Ethereum Take Amid Recent Concerns

Eli Ben-Sasson, a Zcash founding scientist who helped create the cryptocurrency, shared his unfiltered take on Ethereum, in light of recent Ethereum Foundation concerns.

Ben-Sasson’s comments come amid a string of high-profile exits at the Ethereum Foundation, with co-executive director and board member Hsiao-Wei Wang stepping down in the latest development.

At least eight senior figures have departed the Ethereum Foundation over the past five months, raising concerns even as Ethereum faces increased competition from rival blockchains.

Adding to recent concerns, former Ethereum Foundation contributor Trent Van Epps said Ethereum could face a “slow-burning funding crisis” for core development within the next 3–9 months, citing the Ethereum Foundation’s spending reductions and the expiration of the Client Incentive Program (CIP).

Ethereum bull Tom Lee waved off these concerns, highlighting a zero chance of a funding crisis happening for Ethereum.

Zcash cofounder weighs in

In a lengthy post on X, Eli Ben-Sasson, Zcash co-creator, shared his own view on the current turmoil at the Ethereum Foundation.

Ben-Sasson maintains a neutral perspective, saying his post was not meant to criticize the Ethereum Foundation or join naysayers saying it was the end of Ethereum. He also does not intend to defend it and say all is rosy.

“I’m here to share my point of view as a friend of Ethereum and head of an L2 that has been scaling it for quite a few years now,” Ben-Sasson said.

The Zcash co-creator, who is also StarkWare’s co-founder, highlighted Ethereum as having many strengths but also its politics. He cited an instance when StarkWare developed a post-quantum ZK-STARK system to scale Ethereum and make it quantum-ready; this was way back in 2019/2020.

The choice to build with STARKs and zkVM was unpopular and hence considered ‘misaligned’ at the time. Amid the criticism, Ben-Sasson expressed joy in making those choices, despite their being unpopular at the time.

Ben-Sasson expressed optimism about what lies ahead: “As part of the ecosystem and a 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 to alignment.”