Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit that funds and coordinates much of Ethereum's core development, will become smaller and more focused after months of senior exits raised questions about its role in the ecosystem.
Buterin wrote in a long X post on May 24 that his influence inside the organization is set to decline as the board is "in the process of expanding, and my own power within the org will continue to decrease, which is honestly what I want."
- The comments came after several senior Ethereum Foundation people left or stepped back.
- In a May 11 post, the foundation said Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, two people involved in Ethereum's protocol work, were leaving, while Alex Stokes, another senior protocol figure, would temporarily step away from the role.
- Other exits followed. Carl Beekhuizen, a longtime Ethereum Foundation contributor who worked on the Beacon Chain, said in a May 18 post on X that May 29 would be his last day after seven years.
- Julian Ma, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, also said in a LinkedIn post he had decided to leave the organization.
- At least seven senior Ethereum Foundation researchers and leaders have either publicly left or announced plans to leave so far in 2026. The foundation didn't give specific personal reasons for those moves.
In March 2025, the Ethereum Foundation said that Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak would become co-executive directors, with Wang bringing seven years of research experience at the foundation and Stańczak coming from Nethermind, an Ethereum client developer.
Buterin argued Ethereum shouldn't chase the fastest-chain narrative, saying that trying to compete on "250ms latency and 1M TPS" would be "a route to mediocrity." Instead, he said Ethereum should be strongest in areas such as formal verification, safer consensus and reducing reliance on intermediaries.