Ethereum’s Strategic Pivot: The Plan to Restore Dominance | Ansgar, Dankrad & Mike Ippolito

After years of dominance, the community is grappling with stagnating growth, shifting developer attention, and the uncomfortable realization that the old roadmap might not be enough to stay ahead. In this week’s episode of Bankless, Ethereum researchers Ansgar and Dankrad joined Blockworks’ Mike Ippolito and David to deliver an unflinching assessment of where Ethereum is—what went wrong, what’s changing, and where it’s headed.

Diagnosing the Problem: It’s Not Just About the Price

Yes, ETH’s price is down—but the root issue runs deeper. App development has slowed. Ethereum Layer 1 is no longer the obvious place to build. Solana and Base are growing faster. And while the Ethereum Foundation has poured years into world-class research, the product experience has lagged.

Ansgar puts it plainly: "We never really took seriously the downstream consequences of decentralization." In other words, Ethereum leaned too hard into being a permissionless, leaderless collective—without anyone ensuring the pieces actually fit together as a cohesive product.

Rebuilding with Product Thinking

The Ethereum Foundation (EF), long positioned as a neutral public goods funding organization, is now undergoing a cultural transformation. The appointment of Tomas and Xiaowei as co-CEOs marks a pivot toward real strategic leadership, product focus, and coordination.

No, the EF won’t become a centralized command center. But it is accepting responsibility for guiding Ethereum more holistically—incorporating real-world user needs, L2 interoperability, and app developer feedback into its vision.

Dankrad noted a major internal shift: “People have become open to this product mindset. That was non-existent before.”

Scaling Layer 1: From Ideology to Pragmatism

One of the episode’s most significant announcements: Ethereum is now embracing aggressive Layer 1 scaling. For too long, ideological resistance and slow consensus delayed much-needed upgrades. That’s changing.

Dankrad shared a roadmap to increase the gas limit 10x over two years—starting now. With advances in ZK proofs and latency improvements, Ethereum can scale while preserving decentralization. Future upgrades like Glamsterdam aim for 300 million gas per block, with even faster finality and pre-confirmation mechanics on the horizon.

This marks a dramatic shift in priorities. Ethereum isn’t waiting for rollups to deliver. The L1 is back in the spotlight.

The L2 Future: From Friends to True Extensions

Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap was never the problem—neglecting Layer 1 was. Now, the focus is on making L2s feel less like foreign chains and more like extensions of Ethereum itself. Ansgar envisions a future of seamless, native interoperability and unified UX between L1 and closely integrated L2s.

The EF is positioning Ethereum to offer real value to L2s—interoperability, developer support, and core infrastructure—rather than enforcing social alignment through branding or tariffs.

The Ship Is Turning

The episode ends with optimism. The cultural shift is underway. The roadmap is updating. The EF is adapting. Ethereum may have been slow to react, but the community has the talent, tech, and vision to execute a comeback.

The message is clear: Ethereum is pivoting—not out of panic, but with precision. The path ahead is ambitious but focused, decentralized yet coordinated. And as Ansgar said, “Ethereum still has all the pieces. We just have to put them together.”