By 2026, at least 9 researchers have left the Ethereum Foundation.

Written by: Aakash Girimath

Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News

This week, three more core senior personnel left the Ethereum Foundation (EF), and this wave of mass departures has increasingly raised public doubts about the institution's internal stability. Protocol researchers Carl Beekhuizen and Julian Ma announced their resignations on Monday, followed closely by senior solutions architect Pablo Voorvaart, who officially left on Tuesday.

This year, there have been nine instances of personnel departures, causing deep concern throughout the entire cryptocurrency industry. Industry insiders are questioning the internal consensus and coordination capabilities of the Ethereum Foundation, while also worrying that this exodus of core talent could hinder the progress and implementation of Ethereum's new round of network upgrade projects, such as Glamsterdam.

DeFi researcher Ignas spoke candidly on social platform X about the community's concerns, complaining about the lack of transparency in the Foundation's operations: "What exactly has happened within the Ethereum Foundation? How many other resignations have not been publicly announced? What are the real reasons behind this? Is it that practitioners no longer have faith in the Ethereum ecosystem, or is it the significant gap in industry salaries, or are team members simply exhausted? The public wants to know the truth."

Industry Community Attitudes Divided: Panic and Rationality Coexist

A large number of Ethereum community practitioners are deeply worried about the negative impact caused by the departure of core personnel, with well-known community figure Banteg bluntly stating that all three heads of the Ethereum Foundation's major protocols have left, and provided an internal organizational chart with the list of departing personnel to corroborate the situation.

However, many practitioners downplay this personnel change, even suggesting that the Ethereum ecosystem should reduce its dependence on the Ethereum Foundation. Community investor Ryan Berckmans believes that it is normal for differences of opinion to arise within teams regarding the development of detailed strategies and institutional planning. He argues that the Ethereum Foundation still focuses on the long-term ecological layout of Ethereum, emphasizing efforts in post-quantum security technology and on-chain scalability. He views this personnel transition as a normal and healthy replacement of seasoned practitioners with fresh blood from the industry, and that there is no need for excessive panic.

Coincidentally, Bankless's Ryan Sean Adams also stated that the Ethereum community cannot merely rely on the Ethereum Foundation. He believes the market needs an industry organization that actively promotes the increase of ETH asset value, is willing to speak out and has strong execution capabilities, which the Ethereum Foundation has never been able to achieve and will likely struggle to change in the future.

In response, David Phelps put forth a different viewpoint, believing that such thinking is unreasonable: akin to a national leader ignoring the economic and livelihood issues of citizens, as a core institutional entity of the industry ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation should pay attention to the overall economic and market development trends of the ecosystem.

Widespread Talent Exodus Has Become an Established Trend

This concentrated wave of resignations was foreshadowed; in February of this year, former co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation Tomasz Stańczak officially stepped down. The Ethereum Foundation faces long-term internal turmoil in 2024, as many core industry practitioners are dissatisfied with the Foundation's management model and are filled with doubts about the future development direction of the Ethereum public chain. Tomasz Stańczak had managed to stabilize the situation and turn around the Foundation during his tenure.

In March of this year, the Ethereum Foundation asked all employees to sign a cypherpunk manifesto, which sparked strong dissatisfaction across the community. Under tremendous public pressure, the Foundation eventually retracted this unreasonable demand.

In addition to the recent departures, earlier this year, several veteran core members had already left, including peer-to-peer network head Raúl Kripalani, operations head Josh Stark, founding member of the protocol guild Trent Van Epps, as well as protocol cluster heads Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko. There is also a tenth senior member, Alex Stokes, who remains with the Foundation but is currently on planned leave.

These departing personnel have deeply engaged with the Ethereum ecosystem for many years, holding a wealth of core industry experience and technical resources. Carl Beekhuizen served at the Foundation for seven years, deeply involved in early beacon chain construction and KZG ceremony design work; Julian Ma served for four years, leading the drafting of the censorship-resistant protocol FOCIL (EIP-7805) and spearheading the implementation of the 13-second block rapid confirmation rule; Pablo Voorvaart worked for four years, fully responsible for the operations of the two core teams of the Ethereum Developer Conference Devcon and application scenario laboratories.

The Ethereum Foundation confirmed in its latest protocol update that the Glamsterdam testnet is now officially live, and the preparations for the next generation Hegotà network upgrade project are also steadily underway.