# Who Really Controls Ethereum? - Paul Dylan Ennis x Ethereum

- Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress)
- Date: 2026-08-09
- Duration: 15:03
- Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn, paul dylan-ennis, polar, ethereum foundation, mandate, crops
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-1tTJDN0o3nc
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tTJDN0o3nc

## Description

How does Ethereum really make decisions? Paul Dylan Ennis (Polar) explores Ethereum's social layer, the Foundation's evolving role, and why values like decentralization and censorship resistance matter just as much as code.

We discuss Ethereum governance, the CROPS mandate, Neo-Cypherpunk, privacy tools, and why protecting privacy online should be as natural as protecting it in the physical world.

Timecodes
00:00 Introduction
00:40 How Ethereum governance really works
02:19 The Ethereum Foundation's CROPS mandate
04:03 What the Foundation will and won't support
07:06 Why Neo-Cypherpunk matters
09:10 Beginner-friendly privacy tools
11:14 Why privacy should be the default
13:07 Holding back dystopia with decentralized technology

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This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom.
Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info

A W3PN Media House production.
Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd
Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey

## Transcript

Hello, my name is Dr. Paul Dillon Ennis, probably better known to the crypto community as Polar. I'm a lecturer or academic in University College Dublin, where I teach undergraduate and postgraduate crypto classes. Uh my main research area is Ethereum governance, although recently has tended to focus on the Ethereum social layer, the wider stakeholder system and the values that have become uh let's say that this community has converged on such as crops. Ethereum governance is complicated uh in the academic sense. There's always been this distinction between the on-chain and off-chain. So, on-chain meaning the specs as implemented in software clients, which is then distributed across uh nodes, right? So, that's our architectural topology of the uh on-chain protocol. And then the off-chain part, meaning the management, maintenance, and upgrading of the protocol by core developers or developers, researchers, and organizers is the one of the ways that I try to think about them these days. This is done through a fairly informal process where the end result is something called rough consensus. You start off trying to build your case, championing whatever change it is that you want to see implemented. You have to do this uh I guess sometimes in social media, but also on forums, uh the Ethereum uh uh research and development Discord, various places of this this kind. And eventually the idea is that your uh Ethereum improvement proposal, so the the specs as written up, will eventually get discussed for inclusion in the All Core Devs call. Although these days, when you say ACD, there's actually many many versions of these uh All Core Developer calls. And then, yeah, rough consensus is one of those let say um it's it's very hard to describe because it is itself something closer to like there is agreement lack of controversy around something. So it's not very explicitly identifiable say in a call when that moment has been reached although there is someone that the chair who will finally decide that this is what we're going to focus on. Ethereum Foundation Monday is a document it's a manifesto of sorts it's a bit infamous I think at this point because it's essentially outlines what it considers to be the core values of the Ethereum Foundation. The document is specifically for employees of the foundation that is it's you know explicitly written it's for everybody. If you work there you you will believe in these core values here what here's what those values are. And also list a bunch of quandaries so some cases case studies where you can see okay this is how we would maybe make decisions. At the same time it was also published publicly so I think even though it's an like a document for an internal audience it's also clear to me that this is a signal to the outside of the Ethereum Foundation that this is what the EF is going to focus on going forward. And the context of the document I think needs to be taken in the we have to reference that in the year prior there was essentially an attempt to make the Ethereum Foundation more pragmatist so there was a little bit of a populist revolt of community members who wanted to focus on ETH the asset to be more institutional and they saw a dual structure of Vitalik and Shawn and this like kind of pragmatist and Cypherpunk. And then the EF Monday I think was a statement that we're just going to be hardline Cypherpunk that's what the protocol is going to focus on. It also famously include includes a pledge so So you work in the EF you are supposed to pledge This is something I oppose personally. I think that this is a unnecessary request given that the the people who didn't come out the best from this would have been crops aligned anyway, but that's a different political story. >> Uh yep. >> I think crops represents an attempt to set some boundaries on at least what the Ethereum Foundation is going to focus on. So there was a there a growing demand for the Ethereum Foundation to in many ways actually mimic what the Solana Foundation is, which is a centralized entity that is very much leading the direction of what happens. So ecosystem development and so forth. And in Ethereum that's uh not always been something that people wanted. They didn't necessarily always want the Ethereum Foundation to be so front and center. In many ways actually was I think most people would have seen it as a little bit of an embarrassment that there is this nonprofit uh semi uh leadership type entity in Ethereum. So a lack of decentralization. But with that populist revolt, the EF very much took the role of like we're going to lead the charge. Like we're going to make sure everything gets gets done. And uh Yeah, so so that's I think an important element of it. Yet with the Ethereum Foundation mandate specifically and also DeFi Punk from earlier on where these criteria are set out about what kind of projects will be supported by the EF, I think there was an attempt to signal that there are certain kinds of projects that would get supported. So if you are a project which has a particular types of licenses, so you have it's not like sufficient according to say DeFi Punk or the mandate that you just have source available code. You also must be able to fork the code. And you in terms of censorship resistance, of course like you shouldn't not be engaging in censorship resistance, but there's also this other very unique and novel addition, which is that if you find yourself in a durable, non-competitive position where somebody can't grow around you, that even if you're not currently censoring, that that still constitutes a type of latent or virtual censorship resistance. So, I think it is a hardline statement about what the Ethereum Foundation wants to see, what it's willing to support, and implicitly then what it's not going to get involved in. So, we look at the the Lazarus attack, and we saw Defi United come along, and everybody's raising money. One of the I guess the missing elements that people were expecting would have been the Ethereum Foundation give some money or Vitalik donates or something along these lines. And I I think that explicitly not engaging in that kind of support is in line with the the current kind of Crops values, that the ecosystem should be looking after more of itself. So, I think what we're going to see is the EF maybe engaging in a mild subtraction, so subtraction as the ultimate end goal of the EF, that it should disappear when all of its functions have been fulfilled, when the Ethereum itself as a protocol has been ossified, but I think there's maybe a quiet quitting that that's also occurring. So, yeah, if you're not part of the Crops alignment, that the EF is not going to intervene. Neo Cypherpunk is a term coined by Rachel Rose O'Leary of Dark Forest. It is also a term that's being popularized by Web3 Privacy Now. So, that's I I think where most people think of the term, that's probably where they've seen it. They've seen it being announced as the Neo Cypherpunk Summit, all these kinds of events. In terms of its articulation, this is something that got overshadowed by Crops and the Ethereum Foundation mandate. So, you know, these days if you say to someone, "What are Ethereum's values?" they would say probably Crops. Personally, I would be of the uh team like S dot says that Neo Cypherpunk is probably a better term to choose because it's more expansive. It tends to more explicitly focus on say decentralization, permissionlessness, credible neutrality, these terms that have diminished status relative to the I guess what's in the acronym. Uh the reason another reason why I think it's an important term is we have a tendency to describe everything in historical terms when it comes to Cypherpunks. So, you're introducing someone to Ethereum or Bitcoin or the history of blockchains, you have to tell the story that goes back to the '80s and the '90s leading up to Satoshi being influenced the Cypherpunk mailing list. Um and uh you know, you tend to lose them. I know this from being a lecturer that you know, at some point the story is too far back in the uh at the rearview mirror uh for a you know, contemporary tech context. So, I think we should be more mature and more uh and bolder in accepting that we have our own variant of Cypherpunk. And that this variant is a story that should begin, let's say, maybe with Bitcoin, but even in Ethereum's case, it could begin with the the story of Ethereum. And so, uh this allows you to get straight into the discussion of say censorship resistance, open source, and the specifics as opposed to having to articulate this much wider history where uh you know, let's say PGP is an amazing technology, but is it relevant as an introductory element to say uh someone's beginning journey to understand Ethereum? I would say at this point it's actually less helpful and helpful. Beginner-friendly tools uh in the case of Ethereum, uh there are not many beginner uh friendly tools. So, if you want to actually have privacy uh let's say in terms of your financial activity, your options are relatively limited. So, Tornado Cash, of course, would be one that you could use. Uh it's no longer sanctioned, but uh of course, you uh you never know, right? The with the the way that sanctions work. Um it's like I guess it's a temporarily unsanctioned, but who knows what happens with the the next administration. Uh you can also use more compliant tools, so privacy tools, uh or uh Railgun, you know, this is these are uh tools that enable privacy, but I would say this the learning curve for for uh for these is relatively steep. So, even people who are um I guess long-term privacy advocates may uh they they may be able to use them, but I can't imagine say a newcomer uh to Ethereum uh doing so. And uh when it comes to say applications and products, the I think the the gold star here, the one that most people will name is is something like Fileverse, where it's not necessarily something that uh let's say is financial privacy. In fact, it's not financial privacy at all, but it's doing a huge uh it's serving an underserved part of the Ethereum privacy story, which is uh having to use productivity tools, so having to use say a a Google Docs um or an Excel, everything there, even actually PowerPoints, you know, so giving presentations. Fileverse is the uh I guess the I think I think with things like this, it's good if they have a an explanation which can be done in, you know, two or three words. And when I think of Fileverse, that essentially is uh you know, privacy uh Google Docs, you know, it's it's an easy sell, it's easy to use. Uh it's a tool where you uh like technically don't even need to be using say the Ethereum element of it. You can just share documents uh with people um minus all of the data collection. So, that that would be my uh main suggestion is a Fileverse. Yeah, the why is privacy important? This is a a philosophical question that you know, uh people have struggled with for a very long time. In my case, I've always taken it uh uh I mean, we we quite clearly uh we like our our societies are very clearly built to enable privacy. I mean, we we all like to live in private homes. You know, you don't want people to be able to see everything that you're you're doing. We all have a like an innate sense of privacy in our let's say physical real world business. You're going around even letters, right? You don't sort of send letters without a cover. Um so there's information that you want to keep to yourself. There's information that you want to selectively reveal as the famous quote from the Cypherpunk Manifesto. Actually something that turns up in the Ethereum Foundation mandate is they also mentioned this ability to selectively reveal yourself. So I think that that's a natural normal desire to have. There's nothing strange about it. Um and then if we move a little bit into the the online world, there's this at some point and this is where the where this happened in the story is hard to to pinpoint. We start opening our letters. We just we just presume that every random service that you use is allowed to peep into your private affairs and business and keep records and logs. That became normalized not because we accepted it but because that we didn't really have a choice. If you want to be a I guess an everyday participant in the in a in a workplace a modern workplace, you are just your your privacy is just completely taken from you. So Um yeah, so from my from my view it's just a logical extension of your basic desire for privacy in the physical world as extended to the the online realm. How would the world look like if we had a I guess more Cypherpunks Yeah, let's say political context. I think so I always think in terms of dystopia. So I I I am I guess someone who I agree with Assange's idea that the the job of say a Cypherpunk essentially is to hold back the coming dystopia as much as possible. And um, I guess the problem with that dystopian vision is that sometimes you don't think about the the positives, right? What exactly would that be like? Uh, and here I also would tend to agree with someone like uh, Samuel Konkin that really the the best you can do in the uh, inherited political configuration that we have is to carve out these parallel spaces, gray zones, uh, where you can uh, enjoy your your freedoms without the sense of being observed by people you don't want to be observing you. And so, if uh, if if Ethereum is contributing to that, if it's extending the the Agorist uh, the the way that Konkin describes this is it's uh, you know, almost like a uh, a type of asset that's like eating away at the uh, the mass surveillance, totalized uh, controlled elements of society. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so I would imagine Ethereum or uh, privacy uh, enabling tools as expanding and and holding open that that space for us to uh, operate in ways where we are uh, uh, not acting according to the eyes of the Panopticon because the Panopticon is not there, because a lot of our behaviors are of course essentially being dictated by the sense of being observed and the online the lack of privacy online is probably uh, attributed to this. And so, I like to imagine if I was trying to think like idealistically or positively that we would have like new behaviors that were more aligned with our actual inner sense of self.