Veterans depart, upgrades delayed – Ethereum Foundation faces a 'major test' in restructuring

Original Author: Nancy, PANews

Within just a few months, several core members have left the Ethereum Foundation (EF) in succession, further demoralizing an already struggling Ethereum community, especially against the backdrop of relatively weak ETH price performance.

Senior Veterans Exit En Masse During EF's Critical Transformation Period

In mid-2025, facing criticism over slow execution, 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 seen by outsiders as a long-overdue course correction.

In March 2026, the EF released a 38-page mission statement. While reaffirming the core vision of Ethereum, the foundation explicitly stated that its role has shifted from "the first guardian" to "one of many guardians." To underscore its commitment, the EF even created a meme called "SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE," suggesting it would face consequences and dissolve itself if it failed to uphold its promises to Ethereum.

However, as the EF's organizational adjustments continue, core members are steadily leaving. Since February this year, seven core members or senior contributors have departed.

In February, Tomasz Stańczak announced his resignation as EF Co-Executive Director, less than a year after taking the role. During his tenure, he advanced initiatives in privacy protection, post-quantum security, and decentralized AI. He stated that the current Ethereum ecosystem is in a relatively healthy state, so he wishes to return to frontline product building, focusing on exploring the intersection of AI and Ethereum. He also noted that his room for independent execution within the EF was gradually shrinking, and staying on would merely be a transitional handover. His successor is Bastian Aue, who joined the EF in 2019. Aue has less public visibility, having previously focused on key support functions like organizational coordination and operational optimization.

About two months later, in mid-April 2026, core figure Josh Stark announced his departure after seven years at the EF. He was deeply involved in several critical Ethereum upgrades, including The Merge, Dencun, Fusaka, and Pectra, and co-chaired the trillion-dollar security initiative. He cited "planning to rest and spend time with family" as his reason for leaving.

On the same day, Trent Van Epps also announced his departure from the EF. He had long been responsible for the organizational coordination of the Protocol Guild, promoting funding mechanisms for Ethereum core developers, and participating in network upgrades and financial support matters. Post-departure, he will focus on the Protocol Guild and research into Ethereum's political economy. He had previously publicly stated that the EF leadership's association with the Milady NFT collection was "perplexing."

Entering May, Protocol Research Co-Lead Alex Stokes announced a sabbatical. Subsequently, Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, former Co-Leads of the Protocol Guild, along with two senior researchers, Carl Beek and Julian Ma, also left, none publicly disclosing their reasons.

Although the vast majority of departing members did not publicly specify reasons for leaving, sources suggest that the EF, based on its emphasized "censorship resistance principle," required internal members to sign a document called the Mandate, or face immediate dismissal. This principle emphasizes that no entity should intervene in legitimate use or affect system operation through lasting and exclusive control over key mechanisms. However, this claim has yet to be officially confirmed by the EF.

Nevertheless, the outflow of EF talent has also raised external concerns about the overall Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol Guild contributor cheeky-gorilla once warned that the health of L1 core development is the foundation of the entire Ethereum ecosystem, but core developers' salaries are 50% to 60% lower than comparable roles in the market. Meanwhile, high-performance new chains like Monad and leading L2 projects are poaching talent with salaries over ten times higher. He warned that if senior researchers familiar with the underlying protocol logic leave, Ethereum's critical roadmap faces a substantial risk of stagnation.

Protocol Team Leadership Change, Upgrade Delay Fears Intensify

Within just four months, the consecutive departures of senior veterans from the execution layer to the research layer have further increased uncertainty in the EF's reform, particularly concerning adjustments to the Protocol team.

The Protocol team is the core team responsible for the design, research, development, and coordination of Ethereum's base layer, covering areas such as security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networking. As a central force within the EF, it significantly impacts the long-term evolution, security, and scalability of the Ethereum protocol.

In response to the personnel changes, the EF restructured the Protocol team this month, appointing three new Protocol Co-Leads: Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik Svantes. The three have been with the EF for approximately 2 to 7 years.

Among them, Will Corcoran is a Protocol Research Coordinator focusing on frontier research like zkVM proof systems, post-quantum consensus, and Fast Confirmation Rules, possessing cross-team coordination experience and familiarity with the overall architecture.

Kev Wedderburn is the zkEVM team lead with deep expertise in zero-knowledge proofs, zkEVM implementation, and bridging research with engineering. He will continue to lead zkEVM-related work, driving the deep integration of the execution layer with zero-knowledge technology.

Fredrik Svantes is the Protocol Security Research Lead, having long directed core security-related work for Ethereum, including the trillion-dollar security initiative, the Ethereum Bug Bounty program, and organizing audit competitions. He will be deeply involved in cross-team collaboration.

Under the new leadership team, the Protocol group will focus on launching the Glamsterdam upgrade, preparing for the subsequent Hegotá upgrade, and continuing to advance the Strawmap roadmap.

Among these, Glamsterdam is Ethereum's next major network upgrade. Its core direction is to increase the mainnet's throughput capacity, aiming to raise the gas limit from the current ~60 million to 200 million, alongside adjustments to transaction processing mechanisms and state database management.

However, the Glamsterdam upgrade, originally planned for June 2026, has already been delayed. Based on the latest testnet progress and feedback from the Interop conference, the actual mainnet deployment is more likely postponed to the third quarter of 2026. Consequently, some community members and developers worry that the recent core personnel changes could further impact the upgrade's pace and execution efficiency.

Conversely, some argue that this personnel turnover is a normal phenomenon within the EF's restructuring process. Some members leave after completing their missions, some depart aligning with strategic directional shifts, while new leadership has gradually taken over, and the core roadmap remains unchanged. More importantly, as the Ethereum ecosystem matures, the EF itself intends to downplay its central role. This helps reduce the risk of single points of control, alleviates external doubts about the foundation's influence, and further reinforces Ethereum's positioning as a neutral infrastructure.

This also aligns with the "Walkaway Test" concept advocated by Vitalik, where the protocol can operate safely, predictably, and stably in the long term, even if core developers completely step back and cease maintenance.