Top ETH Dev Quits, Lowest Daily Block Rewards Ever – Is Ethereum in Trouble?

While the price of Ethereum (ETH) has been on a tear as of late, seeing a near 20% increase in price from $121 to $149 in the past 7 days, some troubling issues for the network and Ethereum Foundation have arisen as well.

Ethereum Network’s Lowest Daily Block Rewards

First off, on February 17 the Ethereum network recorded its lowest daily block rewards since its launch in 2015. For the first time ever, the reward dropped to 12,989.34375 ETH as the total supply reached 104.93 million ETH. This drop has reflected on the hash rate, indicating there are fewer miners securing the network.

Commenting on this drop in block rewards was eToro’s Mati Greenspan, who attributed the declining block rewards to the delay of the Constantinople upgrade, which had been scheduled for January 16. However, the drop in block rewards isn’t all bad, as Greenspan points out it decreases supply and increases demand for ETH.

Greenspan shared these thoughts via Twitter:

Core Ethereum Developer Quits

The second piece of troubling news is the departure of Afri Schoedon, a core Ethereum developer who announced he will no longer be working on Ethereum on February 19. Schoedon’s sudden departure comes just 1 week before the scheduled Constantinople hard fork upgrade on February 28.

Upon his departure, the core ETH dev announced via Twitter that he will no longer coordinate hard forks, build testnets, or make any contribution to the Ethereum Foundation.

His tweet that has since been deleted read:

“I did not quit social media, I quit Ethereum. I did not go dark, I just left the community. I am no longer coordinating hard-forks, building testnets, or contributing otherwise. I did not work on Polkadot, I never did, I worked on Ethereum. I did not hate Ethereum, I loved it.”

Schoedon worked on Ethereum since 2015 and is largely known for his work on the Parity Ethereum client. He was also a moderator on the Ethereum Reddit page and made large contributions to the network.

It remains unclear as to why Schoedon quit Ethereum, but it’s being debated among the community that he left due to persistent criticism on social media, or possibly to work for another project. While some people in the community are happy to see him leave, others believe he was a critical piece of Ethereum and will be missed.

Do you think a core developer’s departure from Ethereum is a bad sign? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.