Veterans Depart, Upgrades Delayed: Ethereum Foundation Restructuring Faces a Major Test

Original author: Nancy, PANews

In just a few months, several core members have successively left the Ethereum Foundation (EF), further dampening the already low morale of the Ethereum community, especially amid the relatively sluggish performance of ETH prices.

Senior veterans collectively depart during EF's critical transformation period

In mid-2025, facing criticism over 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-ever public layoffs. This move was seen by outsiders as a belated act of self-correction.

In March 2026, the EF published a 38-page mission statement. While reaffirming Ethereum's core vision, the foundation clearly stated that its role had shifted from "the first guardian" to "one of many guardians." To demonstrate its resolve, the EF even created a meme image of a "SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE," implying that if it failed to fulfill its commitment to Ethereum, it would "face the consequences and self-destruct."

However, as the EF's organizational adjustments continued, core members kept 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, having held the position for less than a year. During his tenure, he promoted advancements in privacy protection, post-quantum security, and decentralized AI. He stated that the current Ethereum ecosystem is in a relatively healthy state, so he wished to return to front-line product building, focusing on exploring the integration of AI and Ethereum. He also noted that his space for independent execution within the EF was gradually shrinking, making his continued tenure feel more like a transitional handover. His successor is Bastian Aue, who joined the EF in 2019. Comparatively, less public information is available about Aue, who was previously responsible for 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 with the EF. He was deeply involved in several key Ethereum upgrades, including The Merge, Dencun, Fusaka, and Pectra, and served as co-chair of the Trillion Dollar Security Plan. He cited "plans 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 was long responsible for the organizational coordination of the Protocol Guild, driving the funding mechanism for Ethereum core developers, and involved in network upgrades and funding-related matters. Post-departure, he will focus on the Protocol Guild and research on 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, who previously served as Protocol Guild co-leads, along with two senior researchers, Carl Beek and Julian Ma, also left successively, none disclosing their reasons publicly.

Although the vast majority of departing members did not disclose specific reasons, 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 interfere with legitimate use or system operation through lasting and exclusive control over key mechanisms. However, this claim has not yet been officially confirmed by the EF.

The loss of EF talent has also raised external concerns about the overall Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol Guild contributor cheeky-gorilla warned that the health of L1 core development is the foundation of the entire Ethereum ecosystem, yet core developer salaries are 50% to 60% lower than comparable market roles. Meanwhile, high-performance new chains like Monad and leading L2 projects are precisely poaching talent with salaries over 10 times higher. He warned that once senior researchers familiar with underlying protocol logic leave, Ethereum's key roadmap faces a substantial risk of stagnation.

Protocol team reshuffled, concerns over upgrade delays intensify

Within just four months, the successive departure of senior veterans from the execution layer to the research layer has further heightened uncertainty surrounding EF reforms, especially regarding the adjustment of 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 like security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networking. As a key strength of the EF, it significantly impacts the long-term evolution, security, and scalability of the Ethereum protocol.

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

Among them, Will Corcoran is a Protocol Research Coordinator focusing on cutting-edge 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 the integration of research and 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, who has long led core Ethereum security efforts, including the Trillion Dollar Security Plan, the Ethereum Bug Bounty program, and organizing audit competitions. He will be deeply involved in cross-team collaboration.

Under the impetus of the new leadership team, the Protocol's short-term focus will be on advancing the Glamsterdam upgrade go-live, preparing for the subsequent Hegotá upgrade, and continuously driving the implementation of the Strawmap roadmap.

Among these, Glamsterdam is the next major network upgrade for Ethereum. Its core direction is to enhance the throughput capacity of the Ethereum mainnet, planning to increase the Gas limit from the current ~60 million to 200 million, and adjust transaction processing mechanisms and state database management methods.

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 launch is more likely to be postponed to Q3 2026. Consequently, some community members and developers are concerned that the recent turnover of core personnel could further impact the upgrade pace and execution efficiency.

Nevertheless, some argue that this wave of personnel changes is a normal phenomenon during the EF's restructuring process. Some members leave after fulfilling their phase-specific missions, some depart in line with strategic directional adjustments, and a new leadership team has gradually taken over, with the core roadmap remaining unchanged. More importantly, as the Ethereum ecosystem matures, the EF itself intends to weaken its central role. This helps reduce the risk of single points of control, alleviates external doubts about the foundation's influence, and further strengthens Ethereum's positioning as a neutral infrastructure.

This also aligns with the "Walkaway Test" concept advocated by Vitalik, where even if core developers completely exit and stop maintaining the protocol, it can still operate securely, predictably, and stably over the long term.