CROPS
CROPS is the Ethereum Foundation's abbreviation for four properties it holds that Ethereum must uphold: censorship resistance, open source ("and free, as in freedom"), privacy and security. Set out in the EF Mandate of March 2026, the four are presented as an indivisible whole and as the condition of every other priority in Ethereum's development.[1] The Foundation has since made alignment with CROPS a criterion for its grants.
In the EF Mandate
The Mandate derives CROPS from what it calls its first fundamental principle: "that a user has the final say over their identities, assets, actions, and agents". It then states: "We hold that these properties - CROPS - must remain, as an indivisible whole, the sine qua non of all Ethereum's development priorities, which cannot be displaced." Everything the Foundation does, it adds, must answer to these principles, "with CROPS treated as non-negotiable".[1]
Each property is defined in turn:[1]
- Censorship resistance includes "technical resistance to extra-technical pressure, such as social mores or legal restriction".
- Open source requires that there be "no privileged code or hidden specifications". On licensing, projects the Foundation supports must pledge never to change their open-source or copyleft license: "Permissive licenses are accepted, viral copyleft licenses are appreciated, but merely source-available licenses are not tolerated."
- Privacy means that user data "is not exposed beyond necessity or against their interests", and the Mandate advocates maximal privacy by default.
- Security means that things "must do what they claim to do, no more and no less", and includes passing the "walkaway test" not only for the protocol but for its users.
The Mandate's stated ultimate goal is for Ethereum to pass that test, so that "its protocol and core application layers become robust and trustless enough that they would continue to reliably function and evolve even if the Foundation and today's core developers disappeared tomorrow".[1]
Acknowledging that "the world Ethereum must function in is not yet CROPS-native", the Mandate makes the "CROPS-native approach" the Foundation's default over incremental compromise, and requires a "zero option": for every service offered through an intermediary, any intermediary-free path that is possible must also be built and remain credible. It warns against projects that are "CROPS-aligned" only "by the standard of using the CROPS properties as a checklist", and against "ideas wrapped in the language of CROPS" whose principles do not survive examination.[1] The document describes itself as "written for a thousand-year horizon".[1]
Background
Three of the four properties appear in Vitalik Buterin's January 18, 2025 thread on changes to the Foundation's leadership, which set out the aim to "make sure important values and inalienable rights (esp privacy, open source, censorship resistance) are a reality for users including at the app layer".[2] In July 2025 Buterin explained in an essay why he had come to favor copyleft over permissive licenses, a preference the Mandate later echoed.[3] The abbreviation already appears in the draft of the Mandate circulated to Foundation staff on February 25, 2026.[4]
Use
The Foundation's Ecosystem Support Program describes its grants as supporting "open-source public goods aligned with the EF Mandate and CROPS principles".[5] In May 2026 Buterin wrote that the Foundation would focus "specifically on those activities critical to the success of ethereum as a censorship/capture-resistant, open, private and secure system", and that rather than compete on speed alone, Ethereum "should strive the hardest to be deeply impressive in a different dimension: the CROPS dimension".[6]
In the Mandate dispute
The Source Seppuku License closes the chapter of the Mandate that sets out CROPS.[1] According to the complaint in Fulton v. Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, staff member Trent Van Epps invoked CROPS in objecting to it: "the seppuku license has got to go. if it's a litmus test for CROPS commitment, i'm failing it." When the license was kept, Buterin wrote that being "inoffensive like Mozilla" would have been "100% CROPS compatible, but we feel that being inoffensive in that sense is not the energy we need right now."[7] See Ethereum Foundation Mandate Controversy.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Ethereum Foundation Board (March 13, 2026). "The Ethereum Foundation Mandate". ethereum.org. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ @VitalikButerin (January 18, 2025). "We are indeed currently in the process of large changes to EF leadership structure, which has been ongoing for close to a year.". X. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ Buterin, Vitalik (July 7, 2025). "Why I used to prefer permissive licenses and now favor copyleft". vitalik.eth.limo. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ November 4, 2026. "Exhibit 3: The Ethereum Foundation Mandate, v1.4, as distributed to all staff on February 25, 2026". Fulton v. Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, No. 1:26-cv-05818 (D. Colo.), via CourtListener. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ "About". Ecosystem Support Program, Ethereum Foundation. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ @VitalikButerin (May 24, 2026). "Some of my perspective on where the @ethereumfndn is going.". X. Retrieved November 11, 2026.
- ↑ November 4, 2026. "Complaint and Jury Demand, Fulton v. Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, No. 1:26-cv-05818-TPO". U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, via CourtListener. Retrieved November 11, 2026.