Ethereum developer Danny Ryan joins Etherealize as co-founder

Longtime Ethereum (ETH) developer Danny Ryan recently announced he is joining Etherealize — an organization responsible for marketing the Ethereum ecosystem to institutional investors — as a co-founder alongside Vivek Raman.

Ryan said he would complement Raman’s focus on bridging the real world to Ethereum by bridging Ethereum back to the real world. The developer added:

“This sits at the confluence of real adoption, commonsense regulation, ecosystem development, and critical R&D across L1, L2, and the application layer. We plan to become an active player across the Ethereum sphere.”

The announcement came amid sweeping leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation — a separate entity that guides the development of the Ethereum consensus layer and ecosystem — and investor fears due to Ethereum’s poor price action.

Related: Danny Ryan’s return? Ethereum wallets say yes

Ethereum Foundation overhauls amid declining investor sentiment

Buterin announced sole authority over the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership in January 2025 and rebuked the online community for their aggression toward Ethereum Foundation personnel.

“If you ‘keep the pressure on’, then you are creating an environment that is actively toxic to top talent,” Buterin wrote in a January 21 X post.

As part of the administrative overhaul, the Foundation spun off new organizations tasked with managing and promoting various aspects of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Etherealize will educate institutional investors, including Wall Street firms, hedge funds, and asset managers, about Ethereum and act as a marketing arm for the world’s largest smart contract ecosystem.

Following the announcement of the Etherealize marketing arm, the Ethereum Foundation launched the Silviculture Society — an advisory group tasked with upholding Ethereum’s core values of open-source development, privacy, security, decentralization, and censorship resistance.

The group consists of individuals outside the Ethereum Foundation and will advise the non-profit organization in an informal capacity.

At the time of this writing, the Silviculture Society has 15 members. However, it is unclear if the council will grow over time.

Ethereum has struggled to reclaim its previous all-time high of around $4,800 set in 2021, causing a collapse in confidence among investors, who have petitioned Vitalik Buterin to steer Ethereum in a new direction.

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