An old letter has plunged the Ethereum Foundation into another trust crisis. On October 20, former Ethereum core developer and Geth maintainer Péter Szilágyi released an internal letter sent to the foundation’s leadership last year, exposing EF’s governance dilemmas and imbalances of interest, sparking another community upheaval. Following this, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal and Yearn founder Andre Cronje (AC) both spoke out, questioning EF’s power structure and fund allocation, while Vitalik made a rare response. As the main person in charge of Geth, Péter accused EF of being “bought by money, exploiting developers, and forming a closed elite circle.” He claimed to have rejected a $5 million offer—where the other party intended to privatize Geth and weaken the original team—and revealed that EF secretly funded new teams while marginalizing old members. In the letter, he wrote that he was merely packaged as a “symbolic leader” without any real power. Even more shocking, his total salary over six years was only $625,000, while “ETH’s market cap soared thousands of times, yet core developers received almost no returns.” In his view, EF has lost its ideals, and the ecosystem is controlled by a few VCs and influencers. Sandeep later posted that he was “starting to question his loyalty to Ethereum.” He stated that Polygon has long been committed to its L2 positioning but has not received EF’s recognition, with its valuation and influence both suffering. AC bluntly asked: “If EF doesn’t support core developers or leading L2s, then where is the money going?” Their sharp remarks even led Solana co-founders Toly and Raj to attempt online “poaching.” As the situation escalated, Vitalik stepped in with a “technical response,” praising Polygon’s contributions to Ethereum scaling and the ZK ecosystem, and publicly affirming Sandeep’s integrity and public-minded actions. However, he avoided addressing EF’s governance issues, emphasizing “focusing on products and technology,” which was seen as a clever “appeasement rather than a response.” From Péter’s old letter to Sandeep and AC’s public criticisms, this controversy has torn open Ethereum’s deepest rift—the conflict between ideals and interests, and the contradiction between decentralized narratives and centralized power. Eight years into Ethereum’s journey, perhaps it’s time to revisit that old question: Who decides Ethereum’s future?