An Ethereum core developer criticizes the EF compensation system, revealing a total salary of only $625,000 over six years

Foresight News reported that Ethereum core developer and Geth client developer Péter Szilágyi publicly disclosed today that he had written to the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) a year and a half ago, frankly expressing his "disappointment with the Ethereum Foundation" and pointing out serious issues within the foundation such as severe pay inequality, conflicts of interest, and concentration of power. He stated that since joining, "working at the Ethereum Foundation has always been a poor financial decision." According to him, his total compensation during his first six years at the foundation was only $625,000 (pre-tax, with no incentives), while the total market capitalization of ETH rose from 0 to $450 billions during that period. He believes that this low salary structure forces those who truly care about the protocol to seek compensation elsewhere, which in turn lays the groundwork for "the protocol being captured by interest groups." He also criticized the foundation for long underestimating employees' contributions while "over-relying on those willing to stay for idealistic reasons," and deliberately hiding salary information internally, "making opacity the norm."

In his view, this structural imbalance is one of the key reasons why Ethereum has gradually deviated from its original intentions. When discussing the power structure of the ecosystem, Szilágyi said that Ethereum has formed a "small circle" around Vitalik Buterin—a handful of 5 to 10 opinion leaders and 1 to 3 venture capital firms control the most influential project investments and direction decisions in the ecosystem. "Ethereum appears decentralized on the surface, but the indirect control of Vitalik and his core circle over the ecosystem is almost absolute."