On March 13, Ethereum Foundation (EF) dropped a 38-page manifesto.
Full of idealism. Full of principles.
Finance needs reversible transactions, compliance hooks, freeze authority.
Does EF believe when hackers steal customer funds, they should get away with it?
Good afternoon,
Look the Ethereum Foundation dropped their suicide note ahem manifesto.
No mention of the one question that matters: what happens when North Korea's Lazarus cyberhackers steals your sh*t?
ETH can be the “freedom” internet or it can be the financial system's infrastructure.
Not both.
Keeping it real,
Austin Campbell
Teaching students at NYU Stern
Tweaking c-suites at Zero Knowledge
ZERO IN
BACK UP :
🤷♂️ WTF IS THE EF MANDATE?
March 13, 2026. The Ethereum Foundation Board released their Mandate.
38 pages. "Part constitution, part manifesto, part guide."
EF swerves any addition not passing:
ETH offers: No backdoors. No bailouts. No backsies.
Ethereum must run perfectly even if the Foundation vanishes tomorrow.
BACK UP :
🤷♂️ REAL WORLD RISK
Ethereum contains real world assets.
Smart contracts live.
But in a chain that nobody can intervene in.
If Lazarus hacks?
Grandma’s house belongs to Kim Jong Un. Good?
Jenga. Pull one piece out & everything on top of it, collapses. Pension fund bonds, sovereign wealth treasury. DeFi-maxxis, is this a game to you?
BAG HOLDERS
REPUTATION-AT-LARGE
If only for mistakes or hacks, financial institutions want to reverse transactions…
…only the insane want to die on this hill.
ZERO OUT
NICE KNOWING YOU
Manifestos means products that can’t claw money transfers back (even in the cases of crime and fraud). Meaning they promise for most people, a worse product.
Because worst case scenario? Losing your livelihood.
Blah blah blah innovative tech. Being responsible in the real world? I couldn’t put my money in a product like that, if they paid me to.
ZERO INSIDER
DAS. Spoke on stablecoins, segregation of customer accounts and more.
Source: Blockworks
Last November, C-SPAN came out to Powerhouse Arena to tape the release event for Stealing the Future, when I was in conversation with my former CoinDesk editor Ben Schiller. If you're looking for an overview of the book's core ideas, check it out.
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by David Morris
Shame is Underrated
SBF's parents appeared on CNN pushing for a retrial — their last exit after Trump said no pardon and his appeal collapsed. Barbara Fried called Sam "one of the most brilliant, talented young men of his generation" — sparing not a word for the tens of thousands he defrauded. The lack of shame, more than anything, characterizes the broader moral degradation of our era.
Supervillain Arc
Vanity Fair ran a photo spread of crypto's "True Believers" — Meltem Demirors, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Mike Novogratz in comic-book-villain getups, plus Cathie Wood, whose vapid messianic capital incinerator ARK has enjoyed the media treatment of a hedge fund run by a Make-a-Wish kid. Of the lot, Meltem best embodies the uncompromisingly weird but still Wall Street-friendly-ish crypto sector. Standout moment: the disrespect everyone dishes to OpenSea's Devin Finzer and his wife, who come off as the least significant and most self-important of the roster.
1 Missed out? Celo Green Opera, Banking Beast Mode, Sportsbook Stew
2 More on EF's Real World Asset trilemma? Head to Zero Insights