Does Ethereum need a dedicated business development (BD) organization to avoid falling behind?
Governance & community · 9 participants · 9 quotes · 2026-10-02 ~ 2026-10-04
After dankrad, a former EF researcher now at Tempo, claimed that 'nobody is doing business development (BD) for Ethereum, so Ethereum is falling behind', jfab agreed that the absence of BD is a real problem in the competition for off-chain assets, while many others, including Omid Malekan and kenny, countered that BD is not the key to success and that decentralization is Ethereum's strength.
Background
Unlike Solana, Avalanche and others, the Ethereum ecosystem has no chain-level dedicated business development (BD) organization. The EF (Ethereum Foundation) is a research and coordination organization and does not pitch to issuers or institutions. Recently, ethlabs_org and the Ethereum Institute have been mentioned as taking on this role. Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum L2, but Robinhood is building issuer relationships, distribution, and products itself, so it reads as an example of adoption proceeding without a dedicated BD organization.
Why it matters
This debate reignites the long-standing question in Ethereum's growth model of whether the EF should be a sales organization, through a figure who left for Tempo. As the tokenization race turns into a fight to attract off-chain assets, whether Ethereum builds a centralized BD organization or keeps a decentralized community model could shape the institutional adoption landscape.
Key points
- Is the lack of a dedicated BD organization at Ethereum actually the reason it is falling behind in the adoption race?
- Historically, have chains that invested heavily in BD been more successful, or less successful?
- Can the adoption of L2s such as Robinhood and Base be counted as an Ethereum achievement, or is it a counterexample to the absence of BD?
For — The absence of BD is a real crisis
Dankrad Feist, jfab
- Ethereum is falling behind because nobody is doing BD for Ethereum.
- As crypto competes for assets that originate off-chain, the absence of BD becomes a big problem. Infrastructure alone does not bring in assets, and someone is needed to actively coordinate issuers, liquidity venues, lending markets, and distribution.
- Ethereum has the most robust infrastructure, so someone has to sell it.
Against — BD is not the key to success
Omid Malekan, kenny, Garrett, XQTStrategy.eurosky.social ⿻ 🚀⭐️👨🎤, James 🔥_🔥, cartoon.the🦄.eth 🛡️📖 ⟠, _gabrielShapir0
- Historically, the chains that did the most BD have been the least successful, and in dozens of cases tens of millions of dollars were wasted.
- Bitcoin reached a market cap of 1 trillion dollars without a BD team, so BD is not a condition of success.
- Ethereum's challenge is fixing its economic model, not BD, and its decentralization, the fact that no one wants Ethereum run like a company by a single centralized organization, is what makes it distinctive.
- Robinhood and Base are already Ethereum, so Ethereum is a beneficiary of that adoption, and at least Ethereum is on the list, unlike Tempo.