the more i read the Mandate the more the subtext appears to be setting boundaries on what the EF is willing to do, who it is willing to support and lessening rather than broadening its scope. this is definitely a quite firm reaction to the 'populist revolt' of 2025 which was quite explicit in its desire for the EF to be more hands on. sociologically i think its a fascinating doc, not least because its written anonymously, so we don't really know who is speaking. i think i can squint and see but not super clearly. to put a name on it it seems to represent a kind of hardline cypherpunk, even more cypherpunk than people like myself who support a light pragmatist touch. this is a document on the absolute end of the cypherpunk spectrum. i'm most aligned with the return of subtraction, something i've always supported, since i've always found it strange that in a culture such as ours we had this populist desire to have the EF do everything, which was essentially a reaction to Solana (which is cypherpunk-lite, e/acc inflected). there's some quirky writing in here, e.g. We are NOT a Corporate should be our All your base are belong to us

prolly the most radical, blunt part is the part about what the EF does not do, since it addresses the demands from app builders about things like CT promo. here i am a little more on the side of the builders. ethereum has a weak spot wrt apps and an over emphasis on infra and i think the EF should be doing a little of these, even if its defipunk constrained:

some good meme-ing:

ethereum is sanctuary technology:

this reminded me of bitcoin maximalism's exceptionalism, framing ethereum as differentiated by its crops properties

an obscure reference i suspect many will miss, the mountain man 😁

"E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle" = And then we emerged to see the stars again from Dante's Divine Comedy. a little theological flourish to end 😏

if you just skimmed this document then to be very clear, this is the EF taking a hardline position that it is a CROPs (read cypherpunk) entity and that it has a very firm vision on what it believes Ethereum should be (while stressing, of course, the EF does not equal Ethereum)