Author: Biteye
Ethereum is up!
June felt like the rainy season for Ethereum, with prices falling relentlessly, leaving Ethereum supporters questioning their sanity while averaging down.
But with recent cooling non-farm payroll data and the return of rate cut expectations, ETH has gradually rebounded from its lows.
And right at this juncture, Vitalik has brought the Lean Ethereum roadmap to the forefront, bluntly stating "this is Ethereum's third major upgrade."
In short, it's about redesigning the consensus layer (CL), data layer (DL), and execution layer (EL) from first principles, making Ethereum simpler, more secure (quantum-resistant), more verifiable, and more scalable.
The Ethereum ecosystem has seen a lot of action lately: first, the Ethereum Foundation laid off 20% of its staff, then the protocol layer introduced the Lean Ethereum technical roadmap, paired with new organizations like EthLabs (founded by a former core Ethereum Foundation researcher, Bitmine, and Sharplink) stepping in. Is Ethereum getting its act together to 'shed its load and march forward'?
Without further ado, here are the future market views from the optimists and the cautious within the Ethereum supporter camp.
Optimists: Ethereum is Refocusing
sassal.eth/acc @sassal0x | Founder of The Daily Gwei | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 99
Sassal's stance is direct, urging everyone to follow @leanEthereum and giving it extremely high praise.
He believes this will drastically lower node requirements (in the future, nodes could even run on smartwatches), greatly enhancing decentralization.
Core Takeaway:
There is nothing more bullish in the entire crypto ecosystem than this—nothing. Lean Ethereum is the endgame; it's the ultimate form a blockchain can and should be. Infinitely scalable and fully decentralized—only Ethereum can achieve this.
Ryan Sean Adams @RyanSAdams| Co-founder of Bankless | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 115
Ryan tends to see Lean Ethereum as a signal of Ethereum entering its next phase.
Over the past few years, market criticisms of ETH have focused on a few points: overly complex roadmap, L2s siphoning value, declining mainnet fees, slow Foundation action. But Lean Ethereum refocuses attention back to Ethereum's most fundamental issues: security, scaling, privacy, quantum resistance, and the long-term trustworthiness of the protocol itself.
Core Takeaway:
Ethereum isn't without a next chapter; rather, the next chapter shifts from "narrative expansion" back to "protocol hardening." If the Merge was a major energy and consensus layer refactoring, then Lean Ethereum is more like a redesign of Ethereum's long-term foundation.
BITWU @Bitwux | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 931
BITWU's view leans more towards "historical stage theory."
Ethereum has gone through several key turning points in the past: the early PoW era solved the problem of decentralized smart contracts from 0 to 1; the Merge solved the issues of consensus mechanism and energy consumption; and Lean Ethereum may represent Ethereum entering its third round of refactoring.
This round isn't about piling more features onto the protocol, but doing the opposite: reducing complexity, compressing verification costs, raising security boundaries, making the main protocol more like a "minimal trusted foundation" that can run long-term.
Core Takeaway:
The keyword for Lean Ethereum isn't "flashier," but "more durable." Ethereum needs to prove it's not a protocol growing increasingly bloated, but an infrastructure capable of continuous evolution.
Lanhu @lanhubiji | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 1506
Lanhu focuses more on the long-term technical roadmap behind Lean Ethereum.
Judging from the strawmap, Lean Ethereum isn't a minor patch but a protocol refactoring spanning the next few years: including faster L1, stronger L2 data capabilities, zkEVM / real-time proofs, quantum-resistant security, and elevating privacy to a first-class goal.
This means Ethereum isn't just content with continuing to be the "settlement layer for L2s," but is trying to upgrade itself into a more secure, more verifiable, more suitable underlying protocol for long-term global finance and applications.
Core Takeaway:
Lean Ethereum won't immediately solve ETH's price issues, but it can answer a more fundamental question: Why should Ethereum continue to exist for the next decade?
gigi Rich Pig@gigiz_eth | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 3086
gigi's expression is closer to the mental state of Ethereum supporters: Ethereum isn't lying flat now; it's shedding old baggage to set off anew.
EF layoffs, budget cuts, organizational restructuring—on the surface, it looks like contraction; but viewed together with Lean Ethereum, EthLabs, and new ecosystem organizations, it looks more like a reorganization of labor.
The EF becomes leaner, focusing on protocol and neutrality; external organizations like EthLabs take on more R&D, institutional adoption, and ecosystem growth. Ethereum shifts from "one Foundation pushing forward" to "multiple ETH-aligned organizations pushing forward together."
Core Takeaway:
Ethereum isn't simply laying people off; it's redistributing its fighting units. Before, the EF was carrying everything and running; now, it's slimming down first, then forming teams, marching forward with a lighter load.
Xiyu @ohxiyu | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 5115
Xiyu says when it comes to getting things done in the crypto space, "it still has to be Ethereum."
Especially during this window of ETH price rebounding from lows, Lean Ethereum easily becomes a catalyst for sentiment repair.
The market might not immediately price in the technical roadmap, but it will first price in the "narrative recovery." For an asset long criticized for lacking new stories, Lean Ethereum at least gives ETH a new main storyline to discuss.
Core Takeaway:
Lean Ethereum isn't a single upgrade package; it's more like a protocol-level renovation round. Ethereum is still scaling, and also redefining itself.
The Cautious Faction: The Roadmap is Good, but the Market Waits for No One
Ignas @DefiIgnas| DeFi Researcher | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 387
Ignas says if the Ethereum Foundation can deliver on time, then bullish on ETH; but if Ethereum Foundation delivery lags while the bear market persists, it could turn into a negative.
Core Takeaway:
The Lean Ethereum roadmap is very attractive as it addresses most of the key concerns previously raised by the community, but tokenomics issues remain untouched. Currently, competing projects like Tempo and Canton are challenging Ethereum in the fields of real-world assets (RWA) and institutional adoption.
Dankrad Feist @dankrad| Former Ethereum Foundation Researcher | Xhunt Global Influence Rank: 816
Dankrad's attitude is also quite cautious: approving of the direction, but finding the pace too slow.
He thinks the Lean Ethereum approach is good, but if execution is stretched over 3-4 years, it will be hard to satisfy the market. Especially in the context of AI-assisted R&D significantly improving engineering efficiency, Ethereum shouldn't use the slow pace of the past to push core upgrades.
Core Takeaway:
Ethereum's biggest problem has never been an inability to plan, but whether it can deliver faster. What Ethereum supporters need isn't just a vision, but also a progress bar.
Summary of Both Sides' Views
The Optimists Believe:
Lean Ethereum is an important signal of Ethereum refocusing on the protocol's foundation.
It compresses the previously complex roadmap into a few key points, addressing the community's most vocal demands: scaling, privacy, quantum resistance, security, and protocol simplification.
For ETH, this is a repair to the long-term narrative of the world's decentralized computer.
The Cautious Faction Believes:
The direction of Lean Ethereum is fine, but the 3-4 year timeline is too slow.
Ethereum's price is built on whether it can deliver faster, whether ETH can capture value, and whether the market can see tangible phased results—not just on a beautiful technical vision.
Final Thoughts?
The classic joke on Twitter is, why is Ethereum always at 1700 points every year?
Criticizing Ethereum for spending great effort on L2s and mocking Vitalik like an emperor who only listens to the "flattery" of those around the EF seems to have become politically correct.
But at least this time, Ethereum is trying to get its ranks in order and raise its banner.
Whether July can start off well depends on market liquidity and ETH's own performance; but from a narrative perspective, Ethereum has indeed regained a sense of being in the driver's seat, which has been missing for a while.
