Ethereum researchers drop EigenLayer advisor positions following conflict of interest concerns
2024-11-03

Two Ethereum researchers who generated controversy after revealing their roles as advisors for restaking platform Eigenlayer have resigned those positions, the researchers disclosed in simultaneous messages today. 
Ethereum researchers Justin Drake and Dankrad Feist posted on X that they resigned the advisor positions in order to focus on the base Ethereum network, with Drake noting that he dropped the position in September. 
"I want to apologise to the Ethereum community and EF [Ethereum Foundation] colleagues for the drama I caused," Drake wrote in his announcement. "In hindsight it was a bad move for me to make."
The disclosure of the advisory roles in May lead to concerns around conflict of interest, as EigenLayer ranks in the top 3 DeFi projects on Ethereum in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL), according to DefiLlama data. Drake had described his token allocation payment as significant, claiming it represented "millions of dollars of tokens vesting over 3 years."
"Eigenlayer is a great project that I hope will continue to complement Ethereum well in several ways. But Ethereum has a lot of important work to do and I will focus all my attention on getting it done," said Feist in his post. 
At the time, Ethereum Foundation executive director Aya Miyaguchi addressed the concerns by promising to formalize a conflict of interest policy. "It is clear that relying on culture and individual judgment has not been sufficient, and we have been working on a formal policy to address this problem for a while now. We will be accelerating this work, and will share an update soon," Miyaguchi posted on X in May. 
While the update has seemingly failed to materialize, Drake's post hinted at a policy in effect. "Going forward I will turn down all advisorships, angel investments, and security councils. This personal policy goes above and beyond the recent EF-wide conflict of interest policy, not because that was asked of me but because I want to signal commitment to neutrality," Drake wrote. 
The price of EigenLayer's token has fallen over 10% in the past twenty-four hours, according to The Block's Eigen Price Page, while Ethereum's price has fallen about 1%. 

The Ethereum Foundation was unable to be immediately reached for comment by The Block. 
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