Recently, if you pay attention to the Ethereum ecosystem, you might feel a strange sense of disconnection.

On one hand, developers are intensely discussing technical details such as scalability solutions, Rollup architecture, Interop, ZK, PBS, and the scene is quite lively. On the other hand, the community is complaining, "Why aren't we more aggressive," "Why is the token price so disappointing," "Is the foundation a bit self-righteous," and the emotions are growing stronger.

It seems like two unrelated voices are actually pointing to the same core issue: what kind of system does Ethereum really want to build?

Thinking carefully, these disputes are not fundamentally technical issues. The real disagreement stems from different understandings of Ethereum's "core values." Only by clarifying these value premises can we explain why Ethereum makes choices that seem "a bit off."

**Anxiety in the ecosystem is fermenting**

Recently, the Ethereum community has been quite restless. From reflections on the central role of Rollups, to discussions about the "Ethereum alignment" concept, and comparisons with other high-performance public chains, an inexplicable sense of unease is gradually spreading.

This anxiety is actually quite reasonable. Other public chains are competing in TPS, TVL, new narratives, response speed; what about Ethereum? It is still repeatedly discussing abstract concepts like state sharding, execution outsourcing, and cross-chain interoperability. From an intuitive perspective, it seems neither sexy nor urgent.