From high school teacher to president of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya and her Infinite Garden

Author: Shenchao TechFlow

On February 25, when Ethereum was widely questioned, Aya Miyaguchi, who was once at the forefront of public opinion, served as the new chairman of the Ethereum Foundation.

This was not a whim, and the transition from current executive director to transfer to chairman of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has been planned for a year.

Aya Miyaguchi said in a blog post, “Ethereum belongs to everyone, and because it does not belong to anyone, we allow a culture of disagreement not only tolerate differences—but to become stronger through differences. The role of the Ethereum Foundation has always been It’s not about controlling or owning all aspects of Ethereum. Our responsibility is to maintain Ethereum’s values .”

From Japanese classrooms to infinite gardens in the crypto world, Aya Miyaguchi’s story is not only a unique career transformation, but also a conflicting journey that protects values.

From Japanese classrooms to the crypto world

Aya Miyaguchi’s career starting point is not a technical field, but education.

She worked at a high school in Nagoya, Japan. As a passionate teacher, she is committed to creatively designing courses to inspire students' independent thinking and critical spirit.

However, after more than ten years of teaching experience, she began to feel uneasy - just teaching textbook knowledge cannot satisfy her pursuit of deeper meaning of education. She hopes to help students become people who can explore the world independently, not just exam machines.

"As a teacher, I often tell students that they should have at least one experience of going abroad in their lives."

In the end, she set an example and opened up a new path for herself, choosing to resign from her teaching position and go to the United States to pursue an MBA.

This decision unexpectedly brought her into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

While studying in the United States, Aya developed a strong interest in financial inclusion, believing that addressing inequality is crucial to businesses.

By chance, she met Jesse Powell, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, and joined the company as a management director of Kraken Japan.

However, her career has not been smooth sailing.

In 2014, the cryptocurrency’s public image in Japan fell to the bottom as the collapse of the Japanese leader Mt. Gox. Faced with panic and distrust, Miyaguchi took the initiative to contact government agencies, participated in regulatory discussions, and worked with industry organizations to promote the cryptocurrency regulatory framework that Japan later launched in 2017.

One episode is that she met Vitalik Buterin, the 19-year-old founder of Ethereum in Kraken's office in 2013. He was not a "V god" at the time, and his external identity was a contributor to Bitcoin Magazine. Writing the Ethereum white paper.

Aya later recalled that she did not fully understand the technical details of Ethereum at that time, but she realized that the technology had the potential to change the world. She was attracted by the vision of Ethereum and particularly appreciated its nonprofit nature and community adherence to core values. In her opinion, Ethereum is not just a technology, but also a new worldview that can challenge the existing centralized power structure.

In 2018, after leaving Kraken, Aya was invited by Vitalik to join the Ethereum Foundation.

At that time, the foundation faced many challenges, including coordinating internal and external activities and establishing non-R&D functions. Despite the arduous task, she accepted the role, which she believed was also an opportunity for her to realize her personal ideal.

“At that time the crypto industry started to take on a profitable atmosphere, I felt that Ethereum might be the last hope to realize my initial vision, how decentralized technology can help achieve financial inclusion and help people without bank accounts get banking services, I must Help.”

As executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya adopts a unique leadership approach that she calls the "subtraction principle" —proactively weaken her powers, avoid centralized decision-making, while maintaining Ethereum 's open culture and decentralized spirit .

She described Ethereum as an "infinite garden", emphasizing the nature of its organic development and the importance of long-term thinking rather than short-term gains.

"Infinite Garden" and Zen-style management

For Aya, Ethereum is not only a technical project, but also an "infinite garden" that embodies the ideal of decentralization.

This metaphor is derived from "Finite and Infinite Game" by James P. Carse. She believes that Ethereum’s mission is not to win short-term benefits, but to continue to promote the popularization and development of the concept of decentralization.

She likens the Ethereum community to an untouched natural park full of diversity and vitality. While there are sometimes radical voices or strange ideas, these can also be the source of future innovation.

“The Ethereum ecosystem was not initially set by the Ethereum Foundation to clearly target or milestone, but grew organically as people from different backgrounds joined the community. That’s what the word “garden” means. However, instead of It’s better to say it’s a manicured garden than to say it’s more like a national park. It’s a place full of biodiversity, with caterpillars and something that might eat some plants, rather than a place that relies on a lot of pesticides.

Of course, there are also people in the Ethereum community who say something too radical or even ridiculous. But they can also come up with some useful and original ideas. It is important not to suppress them, but let nature go with the flow. I use the word “garden” to describe this natural state of balance, but I don’t think a word is perfect. ”

In her opinion, decentralization is not only a technical challenge, but also a change in the way of thinking. The privacy risks, data monopoly and abuse of power brought about by centralization have profoundly affected our lives. The decentralized thinking advocated by Ethereum can allow us to re-examine social structures and change the relationship between people and technology.

Aya’s leadership style was deeply influenced by Zen philosophy. It is somewhat similar to the "governance by inaction" advocated by Taoism, which is in sharp contrast with the traditional top-down management method.

She likens herself to a Zen teacher who trains teams and community members to maintain the spirit of Ethereum in a decentralized environment.

She took the upgrade of "The Merge" as an example, emphasizing that this major technological change was completed without the "boss" or central authority, reflecting the self-coordination ability of the Ethereum community.

Under her leadership, the Ethereum Foundation supports several public products and open source tools such as Etherisc. In addition, she has participated in the World Economic Forum’s Global Blockchain Committee and served as the Board of Directors of Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, expanding Ethereum’s collaboration in the enterprise sector.

Questioning and persistence

Aya's values ​​and management style have been supported and recognized by Vitalik, and has also aroused doubts from the outside world.

To sum up, the doubts about Aya are mainly reflected in five aspects:

Qualification dispute

Some industry KOLs believe that her background (such as English literature and previous high school teacher experience) is not sufficient to be competent in the executive director role, questioning her professional abilities.

For example, crypto KOL CoinMamba believes she may not even be able to pass the first round of interviews in other organizations.

Progress slow

Ethereum's expansion issue has always been the focus of the community, and some users believe that under Aya's leadership, the expansion solution has been slow, causing Ethereum to lag behind competitors such as Solana in market competition.

Spending issues

The financial management of the foundation is also the focus of criticism. Some users believe that the foundation has a funding reserve of $800 million, but the cost is too high and the results are insufficient.

Let go of management, insufficient support for developers

The Ethereum Foundation has been criticized for being too "let go" and failing to actively support developers in the ecosystem. Community members believe that the foundation is too passive in technical support and resource allocation, which leads developers to bear more responsibilities on their own.

$ETH poor performance

Some criticism points to the performance of Ethereum tokens in the market, which is disappointing, believing that under Aya, Ethereum has lost its lead over its competitors.

Despite the above criticism, Vitalik Buterin actively defended Aya on X, highlighting her contributions to promoting Ethereum upgrades, Devcon campaigns and maintaining Ethereum culture, and criticizing the community's attacks as "offensive".

A new chapter of Infinite Garden

On February 26, 2025, Aya Miyaguchi announced her transition from executive director to chairman, and she also wrote the article "A New Chapter of Infinite Garden" as her future declaration.

Aya emphasizes the need to maintain Ethereum’s values ​​with philosophy as the guide:

Major technological advances in Ethereum (such as mergers and shifts to proof of stake) embody the philosophy of leadership without control.

The foundation’s goal is to help Ethereum achieve long-term sustainability, rather than pursuing short-term gains or traditional enterprise expansion.

The uniqueness of Ethereum lies in the interweaving of its technology and social innovation, making it an infinite garden.

The concept of decentralization has a profound impact on global society and democratic institutions, and the Foundation is committed to adhering to this value.

To sum up, it is: subtraction, not minimalism. Long-term sustainability, not short-term benefits. Thoughtful complexity, not oversimplification. Manage, not control adaptive growth, not rigid structure. Purposeful evolution, not corporate expansion. Community leadership, not domination.

An interesting phenomenon is that in the discussion on the Chinese Internet, when an organization is criticized, people tend to think that "xx has bad people around, xx is deceived by bad people", similar to "King Zhou was bewitched by Daji", targeting Ethereum During the critical discussion in the FC, Aya became a similar "bad guy".

This is a bit unfair to Aya. She has never changed and has always acted according to her values ​​and methods. It was Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation who chose Aya, and both parties in terms of values ​​went to.

In the crypto world of price-driven attitudes, rising means justice, and values ​​and ideology are often regarded as a kind of "nihilism". Pleasing "Leviathan" and integrating into authority is the easiest thing to make the asset price immediately. To the moon, but refusing to "compromise" and adhering to the ideals and principles of decentralization is more difficult and valuable.

Of course, we must also remain vigilant and supervise. History tells us that many movements under the banner of "lofty ideals" may also become tools of power.

The journey of Ethereum is both a technological exploration and an experiment on human values.

The ideal of decentralization may be difficult to achieve, but it is this difficulty that makes it particularly precious.

As Mask founder Suji quoted a famous quote from Murakami Murakami during a Hong Kong event:

“Between a hard wall and an egg that crashed into it, I will always be on the side of the egg.”