The author previously wrote an article titled "Severe Wealth Effect Loss, Can Ethereum Survive the 'Midlife Crisis'?" detailing the massive challenges Ethereum faces in this cycle, with issues such as lack of innovation, direction, and bloated teams leading to harsh criticism from the community. Vitalik was also knocked off his pedestal and heavily criticized. However, the market rebounded after extreme pessimism. In April this year, ETH rose from $1,400 to nearly $2,800.
Is Ethereum's fundamentals improving? What notable changes has the heavily criticized Ethereum undergone recently?
Ethereum Spot ETF Continues Net Inflows
Previously, the Ethereum spot ETF was long in a state of net outflow. However, since April 22 this year, market funds have been continuously flowing in. As of June 5, only seven days saw net outflows, with the rest being net inflows, including four days with single-day net inflows exceeding $90 million and seven instances of single-day net inflows over $60 million.
According to SoSoValue data, the cumulative net inflow of the US Ethereum spot ETF has risen to $3.23 billion, with no signs of slowing down.
Discussing Collaboration with Sovereign Wealth Funds Based on Ethereum
Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin stated on Tuesday that his company is negotiating with the "primary sovereign wealth fund and bank" of a "very powerful" country about potentially building infrastructure on Ethereum, involving layer one and layer two infrastructure. However, the collaboration details have not been disclosed, and the market's reaction is more based on expectations. If this information is ultimately confirmed and announced, it would undoubtedly provide a significant boost to market confidence.
Additionally, ConsenSys led the $425 million financing for SharpLink Gaming, with Joseph Lubin set to become the chairman of SharpLink's board after this round of financing.
Bitcoin has been continuously accumulated by Strategy, followed by more companies emulating this approach, driving strong buying pressure. Ethereum should have companies driving purchasing power.
As a Nasdaq-listed company, SharpLink plans to use this financing to purchase Ethereum's native asset ETH and use it as its primary treasury reserve asset.
According to Bloomberg, Joe Lubin said that about six months ago, influenced by the most famous digital asset accumulation advocates, he decided to establish a company to invest in Ethereum's native token. "I had dinner with Michael Saylor, did some research, and started discussing with colleagues how cool this idea was," said Lubin, founder and CEO of Ethereum software infrastructure company ConsenSys, in an interview. "No one in our company had previously deeply researched this direction. Later, we found that this strategy didn't seem particularly dangerous."
Ethereum Foundation Lays Off Employees and Reduces Operating Expenses
The Ethereum Foundation has long been criticized for its bloated team. On June 3, the foundation finally took action by laying off some employees and restructuring its research and development team, renaming the department to "Protocol" to focus on the core challenges of protocol design. This adjustment aims to address the community's ongoing criticism of the foundation's management and strategic direction. The foundation stated that the restructured Protocol team will work on three priority areas: expanding Ethereum's underlying network scalability, advancing data availability strategy's blobspace expansion, and improving user experience.
The foundation's announcement mentioned that "some R&D team members will no longer continue" and encouraged other teams to absorb this talent. The number of layoffs was not disclosed. Additionally, the foundation stated that the restructured team will be committed to improving upgrade timelines, technical documentation, and research transparency. Joint Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Weng stated on social media X that she hopes the new structure will drive core projects to move forward more efficiently.
However, some argue that key issues remain unresolved. Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani commented on Twitter, "Note that the definition of focus usually means less, not more, especially when goals should not conflict with each other. But when we look from the perspective of Goal 3 (i.e., L1, L2 network scalability, improving user experience), Goal 1 (i.e., layoffs) and Goal 2 (i.e., clear division of responsibilities) are contradictory."
The Ethereum Foundation announced a new financial management policy in June 2025, aimed at ensuring long-term financial sustainability. According to the official blog, the foundation set an annual operating expense limit of no more than 15% of total assets, with plans to gradually reduce it to 5% over the next five years. Additionally, the foundation will maintain a 2.5-year operational expense buffer and regularly assess whether to sell ETH to replenish fiat currency reserves. This policy reflects the foundation's prudent approach to treasury management, especially in a market environment with significant ETH price volatility.
The foundation also emphasized that on-chain funds will only be deployed in audited, decentralized DeFi protocols, focusing on low-risk strategies such as staking and lending. This move not only reduces fund risks but also aligns with Ethereum's "Defipunk" principles and privacy protection concepts.
In the past, the Ethereum Foundation's token sales often drew community dissatisfaction after being monitored and reported. Now, the foundation has finally chosen to adopt a more cautious approach to address spending issues. These measures indicate that the foundation is laying the groundwork for Ethereum's long-term development by reducing operational costs and optimizing resource allocation, while also providing market reassurance by alleviating selling pressure.
Gas Limit Adjusted to 60 Million
Recently, Ebunker tweeted that Ethereum is expected to raise the block Gas Limit to 60 million with 15% validator support. The higher the Gas Limit, the more transactions a block can process, thereby improving network speed. Among various scaling paths, increasing the Gas Limit can be considered the most immediate method. Moreover, raising the Gas Limit does not require system upgrades or code modifications; it can be gradually adopted by the network as PoS nodes continue to "signal" support when producing blocks.
Although Ethereum has always scaled through L2 and Rollups, this approach has also generated significant issues. "L2 greatly weakens ETH's value capture and can easily lead to a fragmented landscape," said the founder of Continue Capital in a voice conversation.
Scaling the mainnet has become imperative. At the ETHGlobal Prague conference, Vitalik stated that Ethereum will expand L1 scale by approximately 10 times within a year, and then "catch its breath" before the next leap.
Ethereum's current TPS peak has been improved to around 60, and it remains to be seen to what extent Ethereum will further enhance this.
Summary
Ethereum is undergoing multiple transformations in technology, funding, and ecosystem. The foundation's financial reform and R&D restructuring lay the groundwork for its long-term development. ConsenSys's collaboration with sovereign wealth funds signals Ethereum's new role in global finance, while Gas Limit adjustments and ETF fund inflows inject vitality into network efficiency and market momentum.
Despite short-term selling pressure and cost controversies, Ethereum's technological advantages and institutional endorsement maintain its leading position in the crypto market. Moving forward, Ethereum needs to continuously focus on technical optimization and community governance to address challenges from competitors like Solana. 10x Research recently analyzed ETH's performance, writing, "Although we expected a pullback a few days ago, the actual trend is far more resilient than anticipated. Technically, Ethereum is approaching the apex of a large triangular consolidation structure. The ultimate breakout direction could potentially push prices to $2,000 or $3,000. This trend will be crucial and may be triggered by fundamental changes or simply by the entry of a large buyer."
