--- title: "Seven core members left Ethereum in four months. What's wrong with Ethereum?" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/286903152.md" description: "Seven core members have left the Ethereum Foundation in recent months, raising concerns about the organization's stability and the Ethereum ecosystem's future. The departures coincide with EF's internal restructuring aimed at improving execution efficiency and governance transparency. Despite a new mission statement and leadership changes, the loss of experienced contributors may hinder Ethereum's development, as they face competition from other chains offering significantly higher salaries. The Protocol team's restructuring is seen as critical for the long-term evolution and security of Ethereum." datetime: "2026-05-19T11:24:20.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/286903152.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286903152.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/286903152.md) --- # Seven core members left Ethereum in four months. What's wrong with Ethereum? Author: Nancy, PANews In just a few months, several core members have left the Ethereum Foundation (EF), further dampening the already low morale of the Ethereum community, especially given the current relatively weak performance of ETH prices. During EF's critical transformation period, veteran executives collectively left. In mid-2025, facing slow execution efficiency, insufficient ecosystem support, and long-standing doubts about governance transparency, the Ethereum Foundation initiated an internal restructuring, reorganizing its research and development team and publicly laying off staff for the first time. This move was seen by outsiders as a belated self-correction. In March 2026, EF released a 38-page mission statement. While reiterating Ethereum's core vision, the Foundation explicitly stated that its role had shifted from "the first guardian" to "one of many guardians." To demonstrate its resolve, EF even created a meme of "SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE," signifying that if it fails to fulfill its commitments to Ethereum, it will "reape the consequences and end its own life." However, while EF's organizational restructuring continues, core members are steadily leaving. Since February of this year, seven core members or senior contributors have departed. In February, Tomasz Stańczak announced his resignation as co-executive director of Ethereum Framework (EF), less than a year after taking office. During his tenure, he spearheaded developments in areas such as privacy protection, post-quantum security, and decentralized AI. He stated that the Ethereum ecosystem is now in a relatively healthy phase, and therefore he hopes to return to building core products, focusing on exploring the integration of AI and Ethereum. He also pointed out that his independent executive role within EF is gradually shrinking, and his continued tenure is more of a transitional handover. The successor is Bastian Aue, who joined EF in 2019. In comparison, less information is publicly available about Aue, who previously focused on key support work such as organizational coordination and operational optimization. About two months later, in mid-April 2026, key figure Josh Stark announced his departure after seven years at EF. He had been deeply involved in several key Ethereum upgrades, including The Merge, Dencun, Fusaka, and Pectra, and served as co-chair of the trillion-dollar security initiative. His stated reason for leaving was "planning to rest and spend time with family." On the same day, Trent Van Epps also announced his departure from EF. He had long been responsible for the organization and coordination of the Protocol Guild, promoting the establishment of funding mechanisms for Ethereum core developers, and participating in network upgrades and funding support. After leaving, he will focus on research on Protocol Guild and the political economy of Ethereum. He had previously publicly stated that the connection between EF leadership and the Milady NFT series was "puzzling." In May, Alex Stokes, co-head of Protocol research, announced a leave of absence. Subsequently, Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, former co-heads of Protocol Guild, as well as two senior researchers, Carl Beek and Julian Ma, also left, without publicly disclosing their reasons. Although most departing members did not disclose specific reasons for their departure, reports suggest that EF, based on its emphasized "anti-censorship principle," required internal members to sign a document called a Mandate, or face immediate dismissal. This principle emphasizes that no entity should interfere with legitimate use or influence system operation by establishing persistent and exclusive control over key mechanisms. However, this statement has not yet been officially confirmed by EF. The loss of talent from EF has also raised 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, but core developers are paid 50% to 60% less than similar positions in the market, while high-performance new chains like Monad and leading L2 projects are poaching talent with salaries more than 10 times higher. He warned that once senior researchers familiar with the underlying protocol logic leave, Ethereum's key roadmap will face the risk of substantial shutdown. The Protocol team's leadership change exacerbates concerns about upgrade delays. Within just four months, seasoned veterans from the execution and research layers have left one after another, further increasing the uncertainty surrounding EF's reforms, especially the adjustments to the Protocol team. The Protocol team is the core team responsible for the design, research, development, and coordination of the Ethereum base layer, covering areas such as security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networks. As one of the core forces of EF, it has a significant impact on the long-term evolution, security, and scalability of the Ethereum protocol. In response to personnel changes, EF also completed the restructuring of the Protocol team this month, appointing three new Protocol co-leaders: Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik Svantes. The three have been with EF for approximately two to seven years. Will Corcoran is the Protocol Research Coordinator, focusing on cutting-edge research such as the zkVM proof system, post-quantum consensus, and Fast Confirmation Rule. He has experience in cross-team coordination and is familiar with the overall architecture. Kev Wedderburn is the zkEVM team leader, with extensive experience in zero-knowledge proofs, zkEVM implementation, and the integration of research and engineering. He will continue to lead zkEVM-related work, promoting the deep integration of the execution layer and zero-knowledge technology. Fredrik Svantes is the Protocol Security Research Leader, having long led core Ethereum security work, including the trillion-dollar security plan and Ethereum bug fixing. The Bounty program and audit competition organization will be deeply involved in cross-team collaboration. Under the new leadership team, Protocol will focus on launching the Glamsterdam upgrade in the short term, preparing for the next Hegotá upgrade, and continuing to push forward the implementation of the Strawmap roadmap. Glamsterdam is Ethereum's next major network upgrade, with a core focus on improving Ethereum's mainnet throughput. The plan is to increase the gas cap from the current approximately 60 million to 200 million, and to adjust the transaction processing mechanism and state database management method. However, the Glamsterdam upgrade, originally planned for June 2026, has 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 the third quarter of 2026. Therefore, some community members and developers are concerned that recent changes in core personnel may further impact the upgrade's pace and execution efficiency. However, some argue that this personnel turnover is a normal phenomenon during the EF restructuring process. Some members have left after completing their phased missions, while others have adjusted to align with the strategic direction. Meanwhile, a new leadership has gradually taken over, and the core roadmap remains unchanged. More importantly, as the Ethereum ecosystem matures, EF itself intentionally downplays its central role. This helps reduce the risk of a single point of control, alleviates external doubts about the foundation's influence, and further strengthens Ethereum's position as a neutral infrastructure. This also aligns with Vitalik's concept of "walkaway testing," ensuring that even if core developers completely withdraw and cease maintenance, the protocol can still operate securely, predictably, and stably in the long term. ### Related Stocks - [ETHE.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ETHE.US.md) - [BTCS.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BTCS.US.md) - [COIN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/COIN.US.md) - [FETH.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/FETH.US.md) - [CETH.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/CETH.US.md) - [ETHA.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ETHA.US.md) - [QETH.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/QETH.US.md) - [EETH.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/EETH.US.md) - [BTF.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BTF.US.md) - [ETHW.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ETHW.US.md) - [EZET.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/EZET.US.md) - [ETHHKD.VAHK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ETHHKD.VAHK.md) - [ETHUSD.VAHK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ETHUSD.VAHK.md) ## Related News & Research - ['The Entire Economy Is Going To Be Tokenized,' Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin Says, Positioning Ethereum As The Winner](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286265353.md) - [Ethereum Community Debates Changes To Staking Model As ETH Remains Stuck Below $2,300](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286153164.md) - [SKALE to Host Programmable Privacy Session on May 13th](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286146801.md) - [ZAWYA: OKX launches USDSⓈ-M options on Bitcoin and Ether](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286889580.md) - [Key facts: ETHUSD sellers realized ~$74.6M; targets range $1,071–$4,000](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286645101.md)