Original author: Nancy, PANews
In just a few months, several core members have left the Ethereum Foundation (EF), further demoralizing an already low-spirited Ethereum community, especially as ETH's price performance has been relatively weak.
During EF's critical transition period, veteran leaders are leaving en masse.
In mid-2025, facing sluggish execution efficiency, insufficient ecosystem support, and long-standing questions about governance transparency, the Ethereum Foundation initiated an internal restructuring, reorganizing its research and development teams and conducting its first public layoffs. This move was viewed by outsiders as a long-overdue course correction.
In March 2026, EF released a 38-page mission statement. While reaffirming Ethereum’s core vision, the foundation explicitly stated that its role had shifted from “first guardian” to “one of many guardians.” To demonstrate its resolve, EF even created a meme titled “SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE,” indicating that if it failed to uphold its commitments to Ethereum, it would “face the consequences and take responsibility.”
However, as the EF organizational restructuring continues to progress, key members have been steadily leaving. Since February this year, seven key members or senior contributors have departed.
In February, Tomasz Stańczak announced his departure as co-CEO of the Ethereum Foundation, less than a year after assuming the role. During his tenure, he advanced initiatives in privacy protection, post-quantum security, and decentralized AI. He stated that the Ethereum ecosystem is now in a relatively healthy state, prompting him to return to hands-on product development with a focus on exploring the integration of AI and Ethereum. He also noted that his independent executive space within the EF had been gradually narrowing, making his continued tenure feel more like a transitional handover. He is succeeded by Bastian Aue, who joined the EF in 2019. In contrast to Stańczak, Aue has maintained a lower public profile and has primarily focused on organizational coordination and operational optimization.
Approximately two months later, in mid-April 2026, key figure Josh Stark announced his departure from EF after seven years, during which he played a central role in multiple critical Ethereum upgrades, including The Merge, Dencun, Fusaka, and Pectra, and served as co-chair of the Trillion-Dollar Security Initiative. He cited his reason for leaving as “planning to take a break and spend time with family.”
On the same day, Trent Van Epps also announced his departure from EF. He has long been responsible for organizing and coordinating Protocol Guild, advancing the funding mechanism for Ethereum core developers, and participating in network upgrades and funding-related matters. After his departure, he will focus on Protocol Guild and research into Ethereum’s political economy. Previously, he publicly stated that the EF leadership’s connection to the Milady NFT collection was “confusing.”
In May, Alex Stokes, co-head of Protocol Research, announced a leave of absence. Subsequently, Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, former co-heads of Protocol Guild, along with senior researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma, also departed, with no public reasons provided for any of their exits.
Although the vast majority of departing members have not publicly disclosed their specific reasons for leaving, reports suggest that EF required internal members to sign a document called the Mandate, based on its emphasized principle of censorship resistance, or face immediate termination. This principle asserts that no entity should exert persistent and exclusive control over critical mechanisms to interfere with legitimate use or affect system operations. However, this claim has not yet been officially confirmed by EF.
However, the loss of EF talent has also raised external concerns about the overall Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol Guild contributor cheeky-gorilla previously warned that the health of L1 core development is the foundation of the entire Ethereum ecosystem, yet core developers’ salaries are 50% to 60% lower than market rates for comparable roles, while high-performance new chains like Monad and leading L2 projects are poaching talent with salaries more than ten times higher. He cautioned that if senior researchers familiar with the underlying protocol logic depart, Ethereum’s key roadmap risks substantial stagnation.
The Protocol team has changed leadership, intensifying concerns about the upgrade delay.
Within just four months, a series of seasoned veterans from the execution to the research teams have departed, further increasing uncertainty around EF’s reforms, particularly regarding the Protocol team’s restructuring.
The Protocol team is the core team responsible for designing, researching, developing, and coordinating Ethereum’s base layer, covering areas such as security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networking. As one of EF’s key teams, it plays a vital role in shaping Ethereum’s long-term evolution, security, and scalability.
In response to personnel changes, EF also restructured the Protocol team this month, appointing three new co-leads of the Protocol team: Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik Svantes, all of whom have been with EF for approximately two to seven years.
Among them, Will Corcoran is a Protocol Research Coordinator focused on cutting-edge research such as zkVM proof systems, post-quantum consensus, and the Fast Confirmation Rule, with experience in cross-team coordination and a strong understanding of the overall architecture.
Kev Wedderburn leads the zkEVM team and has deep expertise in zero-knowledge proofs, zkEVM implementation, and the integration of research with engineering. He will continue to lead zkEVM-related initiatives, driving deeper integration between the execution layer and zero-knowledge technology.
Fredrik Svantes is the Head of Protocol Security Research and has long led core Ethereum security initiatives, including the Trillion-Dollar Security Program, the Ethereum Bug Bounty program, and audit competitions, and will deeply engage in cross-team collaboration.
Under the new leadership team, Protocol will shortly focus on launching the Glamsterdam upgrade, preparing for the next Hegotá upgrade, and continuing to implement the Strawmap roadmap.
Among these, Glamsterdam is the next major network upgrade for Ethereum, primarily aimed at enhancing the mainnet's throughput. It plans to increase the gas limit from the current approximately 60 million to 200 million, while also adjusting transaction processing mechanisms and state database management methods.
However, the Glamsterdam upgrade, originally scheduled for June 2026, has been delayed. Based on the latest testnet progress and feedback from the Interop conference, the actual mainnet deployment is now more likely to be pushed to the third quarter of 2026. As a result, some community members and developers are concerned that recent key personnel changes may further impact the pace and efficiency of the upgrade.
However, some argue that this round of personnel changes is a normal part of EF’s restructuring process—certain members have departed after completing their阶段性 missions, while others have transitioned in alignment with strategic adjustments. Meanwhile, the new leadership team has gradually taken over, and the core roadmap remains unchanged. More importantly, as the Ethereum ecosystem matures, EF intentionally seeks to reduce its central role, helping to mitigate single-point control risks, alleviate external concerns about the foundation’s influence, and further reinforce Ethereum’s positioning as a neutral infrastructure.
This also aligns with Vitalik’s concept of the “Walkaway Test,” where the protocol can continue to operate safely, predictably, and stably over the long term, even if core developers completely exit and cease maintenance.