Two Ethereum Foundation researchers, Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist, have announced the decisions to leave their advisor positions at EigenLayer. The two experts took on this role with the re-withdrawal protocol earlier in May 2024 – but much to the disappointment of the crypto community.
If reported by Bitcoinistthe prominent crypto figures took the step to join EigenLayer as advisors, with Drake specifically pledging to reinvest his earnings into the ETH ecosystem. Nevertheless, the crypto community on social media platform X expressed concerns about conflicts of interest surrounding the appointment of the Ethereum researchers.
Justin Drake apologizes to the Ethereum community and foundation
In a November 2 post on X, Justin Drake announced that he left the advisory role at EigenLayer in September 2024 and also left the Ultra Sound team. The researcher also apologized to the Ethereum community and his colleagues at the foundation for the controversy surrounding his appointment.
Drake added in the message:
Going forward, I will decline all advisorships, angel investments, and security boards. This personal policy goes beyond the recent EF (Ethereum Foundation)-wide conflict of interest policy, not because I was asked to do so, but because I want to signal a commitment to neutrality.
As highlighted in Drake’s post, the crossover is to Own layer by the two researchers, the Ethereum Foundation was forced to implement a conflict of interest policy to prevent a recurrence of such incidents. Following these steps, Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi was the first to signal the foundation’s commitment to addressing the problem of conflicts of interest.
Source: AyaMiyagotchi/X
More Danksharding upgrades?
Oddly enough, Dankrad Feist at the same time issued a message on X announcing his decision to resign from his role as advisor at EigenLayer. The famed creator of the “Danksharding” concept reiterated that while the contract was negotiated in good faith, he understands how the relationship with EigenLayer can easily be misunderstood.
Feist noted:
Eigenlayer is a great project that I hope will continue to complement Ethereum well in several ways. But Ethereum has a lot of important work to do and I will focus all my attention on getting it done. This allows me to be more effective in implementing Danksharding and other important projects.
These announcements generated positive responses from the crypto community on the X platform, with several notable numbers labelling their decision to leave EigenLayer behind was a good choice.
The price of ETH under bearish pressure on the daily timeframe | Source: ETHUSDT chart on TradingView
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