- In the recent post on X, BitMine CEO Tom Lee has raised his support for a new Ethereum organization suggested by a former Ethereum Foundation researcher.
- According to Tom Lee, Ethereum would play a major role as the settlement layer for agentic AI in the future.
- Dankrad Feist has shared a few suggestions for the new organization, including new competent leadership.
On May 21, Tom Lee, co-founder and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, shared a post on the recent major discussion about the new Ethereum organization amid the departure of many popular Ethereum Foundation researchers and contributors.
In the latest post on X (formerly Twitter), Tom Lee raised his support to lead Ethereum’s new organization along with “a deep bench of leaders and developers.” It will help the community to ensure that the network remains the future settlement layer of finance and AI.
The official tweet from Tom Lee highlights the Ethereum blockchain’s role in the agentic economy.
Tom Lee Agrees with Former Ethereum Foundation Researcher’s Suggestion for New Leadership
Tom Lee’s post came in response to the post shared by crypto analyst and Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams. In the post on X, Ryan Sean Adams mentioned the name of Lee as a potential leader for a new organization suggested by a former Ethereum Foundation researcher.
Tom Lee’s BitMine is continuously accumulating ETH, and it is currently the biggest ETH-holding private company. As per the latest announcement, the company is currently holding 5.27 million ETH tokens in its treasury, making it the biggest ETH holding entity. This makes it the biggest bullish force for the ETH price movement as it provides confidence to institutional investors. It also encourages other financial institutions to move beyond Bitcoin treasuries and hold assets like ETH.
The origin of this discussion is a detailed proposal shared by Dankrad Feist, who is a former researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. In the post, Feist mentioned that the foundation is now holding less than 0.1%. He also mentioned that there is “no flow” for generating income from staking or fees.
According to Dankrad, to bring Ethereum back on the right track, the community should create an organization that “economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it.” Dankrad has mentioned that the organization must have credible funding of a minimum of $1 billion in the beginning.“That’s very reasonable for an ecosystem with a $250 billion market cap,” he said.
Apart from this, he affirmed that the new foundation needs a competent leader who wants to fight. Also, the new organization must have a board of people “who want ETH to go up, and a charter that holds the org accountable to it.”
However, some community members are still raising questions about this proposal suggested by Dankrad Feist. Laura Shin stated in the post that, “IMO, though, it won’t work unless it can influence tokenomics. That’s the piece that’s been missing, and that needs to be integrated with the tech. Having an outside organization can only help with BD, not the fundamental ways the token works.”
Ethereum Foundation Sees Departure of Major Team Members
The Ethereum Foundation is currently facing a crisis as major talent is leaving the organization for different reasons. Recently, many senior researchers, developers, and leaders have abandoned the organization, which has sparked a discussion in the entire community about the future of the organization.
The list includes the popular names, including Carl Beek, Julian Ma, Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, Alex Stokes, and Tomasz Stanczak.
Most of these departures are connected to internal restructuring in the Ethereum Foundation. In 2025, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin hinted at some changes in leadership. According to these changes, Aya Miyaguchi took the role of President.
In March 2026, the Ethereum Foundation revealed a document known as the EF Mandate. In this, the foundation has shared new principles, which include censorship resistance, open source development, privacy, and security.
“To be a part of EF, our own teams must remember that Ethereum must, above all, remain censorship resistant, open source, private, and secure (CROPS). Its self-sovereign use must be extraction-resistant and experience seamless. These are the conditions that make Ethereum worth using, and therefore worth building, and worth defending. They must never be traded away for convenience: without them we have nothing,” stated in the official announcement.
Tom Lee Mentions Blockchain’s Role in Agentic AI
In the tweet, Tom Lee has highlighted blockchain’s important role in the agentic AI economy. He said, “Blockchain is arguably the only way agentic AI interacts in commerce. And blockchain vastly improves the profit profile of the financial system.”
Agentic AI is an autonomous system that can think, plan, and execute complex tasks with just small human intervention. According to Goldman Sachs Research, Agentic AI is expected to witness a growth of 24x in token due to growing adoption and consumption by 2030.
Blockchain technology is expected to play a major role in this agentic payment revolution as it can provide permanent records for ownership and agreements. Apart from this, the feature of smart contracts can allow AI agents to automate financial transactions. The integration of agentic AI with blockchain technology will allow them to open a door for trustless settlement, which means that AI agents can talk to each other without any middle authority and make settlements. This will also help developers to create programmable money, such as USDC.
On May 11, Circle announced the launch of the Circle Agent Stack, which is a tool that is designed for AI agents. One of the major features of this stack is agent wallets that come with programmable safety limits, which can be used for nanopayments by using USDC stablecoin. Apart from this, there will be an Agent Marketplace where users will be able to find different services and make transactions.
On May 21, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire shared a major update regarding the AI agents. The new feature will allow agents to sign up for phone numbers on their own and make real-time AI calls through integrations with services like Twillio and BlandAI.
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