TL;DR:
- The Ethereum Foundation is prioritizing Kohaku, a privacy-focused initiative promoted by Vitalik Buterin on May 26, rather than acting as ETH price support.
- Kohaku has been under development for close to a year and includes privacy tooling, Railgun libraries, privacy pools and post-quantum account work.
- Internal pressure remains high after senior contributor departures, while Aave’s revenue-led strategy highlights a competing growth-focused path for DeFi during today’s weak market cycle overall.
The Ethereum Foundation is trying to answer one of the loudest criticisms around Ethereum without promising the thing many holders seem to want most: price support. After weeks of community frustration, contributor departures and weak ETH performance, Vitalik Buterin promoted Kohaku on May 26, a privacy-focused initiative housed inside the foundation. The foundation’s answer is security and privacy, not market defense, a stance that feels almost deliberately unfashionable while ETH trades around $2,136, less than half last August’s level and sharply weaker against Bitcoin over a five-year window. That tension is now defining the foundation’s narrative at a difficult moment for frustrated ETH holders across the ecosystem.
I want to get a bit more public about the work we at the Kohaku Initiative inside the EF are doing
I notice there's hype but there's also confusion. Best way to clarify things is to speak candidly and openly about what I'm working on day-to-day
time (bc i dont pay twitter $)
— mrs kzg.eth née kassandra (@kassandraETH) May 25, 2026
Privacy work becomes Ethereum’s strategic response
Kohaku has been in development for close to a year and is aimed at making security, trustlessness and privacy normal at Ethereum’s access layer. The project’s repository describes privacy-first tooling that includes libraries for Railgun, privacy pools, a provider abstraction layer and a post-quantum 4337 account implementation, with several components still marked as works in progress. The initiative is technical infrastructure rather than a sentiment campaign, which explains both its strategic relevance and the frustration of investors looking for faster, more visible support while the token struggles to regain momentum.
The political pressure inside the ecosystem is hard to ignore. At least eight senior contributors have left or announced departures in 2026, including five in May. Carl Beek, involved in the Beacon Chain launch, and cryptoeconomics researcher Julian Ma announced exits on May 18. Buterin responded on May 25 by describing the foundation as one node with a defined purpose, not Ethereum’s central authority. That framing narrows the foundation’s mandate, especially as it plans to reduce token sales and focus on censorship resistance, capture resistance, openness, privacy and security as core work.
The contrast with Aave shows why the debate feels so unresolved. On May 23, founder Stani Kulechov committed Aave to a 12-month revenue-led protocol strategy, arguing through action that DeFi must become more durable than token speculation. Aave generated $7.96M in fees over seven days, holds more than $14B in total value locked and saw V4 cross $100M in combined deposits and loans. Ethereum now faces two competing instincts, one prioritizing research principles, the other prioritizing revenue, institutions and measurable growth as the market keeps asking what leadership should deliver next.