The Ethereum Foundation has published a new mandate describing its role as “one of many stewards” of the network. The document clarifies governance philosophy as the ecosystem expands across developers, institutions, and independent infrastructure providers.
The mandate outlines a framework the foundation calls “CROPS,” shorthand for censorship resistance, open source development, privacy, and security. According to the organization, those principles anchor Ethereum’s core objective of enabling individuals to control digital assets, identities, and online activity without centralized intermediaries.
The document, described internally as part constitution and part manifesto, also states that the foundation does not serve as a governing authority over Ethereum. Instead, it frames the organization as an early steward tasked with protecting core protocol values while the broader ecosystem grows.
Who Governs Ethereum As The Network Expands?
The mandate emphasizes that the Ethereum Foundation should not function as the network’s parent or final authority. Instead, it positions stewardship as a distributed responsibility shared across developers, researchers, and organizations building on the protocol.
“The EF is not Ethereum’s parent, ruler, or final authority,” the foundation wrote. “Our role is stewardship.”
The document adds that the organization hopes the principles outlined in the mandate will endure even if the foundation itself eventually steps away.
Vitalik Buterin echoed the theme in a separate statement, describing Ethereum as a coordination technology designed to preserve technological self-sovereignty. He said the foundation will prioritize protocol-layer work including decentralization, privacy protections, and security improvements.
This is the new EF Mandate.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) March 13, 2026
For many of you, the contents should be no surprise, and a clarification along the lines that we have been going and thinking for the past few months. But the clarification is nevertheless worth making.
Ethereum is a unique object and has a unique… https://t.co/SMGCWnmUk5
Meanwhile, application-layer development will increasingly occur outside the foundation’s direct oversight. Independent teams now build decentralized finance, identity, and infrastructure tools across the ecosystem.
Foundation president Aya Miyaguchi said the mandate formalizes values that have guided the project since its early years.
“The principles we listed on the mandate are not new,” Miyaguchi wrote, adding that they were previously implied rather than explicitly documented.
We just released the EF Mandate. The blog expresses our message more fully, but at heart, we started working on this some time ago because Ethereum’s future no longer feels far away. It is already here. And with that comes a deeper responsibility for us: to be clearer about what… https://t.co/hkZJKmEzLL
— Aya Miyaguchi (@AyaMiyagotchi) March 13, 2026
The clarification arrives as Ethereum’s ecosystem has expanded into a multi-layer environment spanning rollups, decentralized applications, and institutional infrastructure providers. Governance questions have become more visible as adoption grows.
Developers and governance researchers will likely watch how the stewardship framework shapes future protocol upgrades, particularly as Ethereum continues transitioning toward rollup-centric scaling architectures and broader institutional participation.
