On the evening of July 9, 2026, the Protocol Support team under the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced on its official X account that the team has been officially disbanded. This news quickly spread in the cryptocurrency developer community, becoming the most concerning hot topic in the Ethereum ecosystem that day.
The main responsibilities of this team included coordinating the Ethereum protocol development process, organizing and coordinating core developer meetings, tracking network upgrade progress, supporting EIP advancement, operating the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) program, and providing education, community, and infrastructure coordination support. Its dissolution is not an isolated event but rather a continuation and realization of EF's large-scale organizational restructuring and budget compression strategy since June.
Transitioning from "Omnipotent Coordinator" to "Streamlined Guardian"
As early as June 23, 2026, EF management published an article titled "The EF's new structure" on the official blog, officially announcing the details of the restructuring. This adjustment took several months and had a core goal of implementing the previously announced Mandate and Treasury Management Policy, transforming into a more streamlined and sustainable "endowment-style" operational model.
The direct results of the restructuring include:
- Layoffs of about 54 people, accounting for about 20% of the total number of employees at that time;
- A reduction of approximately 40% in the operational budget for 2026;
- The organizational structure adjusted to five core work clusters (protocol layer, access layer, user layer, community layer, institutional layer) plus operational support and management systems cluster.
The disbandment of the Protocol Support team is a concrete manifestation of this clustered reform at the protocol coordination level. EF emphasizes that under the new structure, the protocol clusters will continue to bear core responsibilities, ensuring that the foundational attributes of the Ethereum protocol in terms of autonomy, censorship resistance, anti-capture, open-source, privacy, and security are strengthened.
Vitalik Buterin and other key figures had previously openly supported this direction, viewing it as a shift for the foundation from an "omnipotent core developer" role to a "protocol guardian" positioning. This shift aims to reduce reliance on centralized coordination and promote further decentralization in the Ethereum development process.
The current slim down by EF has a clear financial backdrop. The foundation's runway faces pressure after the restructuring, with some discussions mentioning a possible remaining level of only 3-9 months. EF stated in the announcement that it would provide severance support above local legal standards to departing personnel and assist with career transition.
Profound Impact on Ethereum Development Collaboration Model
The disbandment of the Protocol Support team directly touches upon the adjustment of the underlying collaboration model for Ethereum development. The positive side is that it may accelerate Ethereum's evolution toward truly decentralized development. With clear division of labor among different clusters under the new structure, it is expected to form a clearer accountability mechanism. At the same time, this also raises higher demands on external participants, with the weight of independent research institutions and community contributors increasing.
Potential challenges also exist, as short-term coordination efficiency may face adjustments. However, the adaptability of the Ethereum community has been repeatedly validated.
This major adjustment reflects the sustainability challenges that nonprofit organizations in the crypto field generally face. Its choice of the "endowment-style" model aims for long-term existence. This path is in line with the ethos of Ethereum's decentralization.
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Future Outlook
Although the Protocol Support team has been disbanded, the core development work of Ethereum remains fundamentally unaffected. The restructured framework will further refine in the coming months as ecosystem co-creation enters a new stage. This event once again reminds the industry that the value of cryptographic technology lies in distributed resilience. The Ethereum Foundation is exploring a balance point, and its adjustments will provide important samples for the industry.
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