Ethereum Foundation mandate triggers 8 exits as internal rift deepens

Ethereum Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi broke her silence on the organization's new mandate, framing the shift as a necessary reset after eight senior contributors departed since January.

"The EF had become a focal point for competing expectations, with debates that were meant to be technical becoming political and personal," Miyaguchi wrote on X. "As EF grew, more and more versions of 'what EF should be' began pulling at the core of the organization from every direction at once."

The March 13 mandate document explicitly reframed the Switzerland-based nonprofit as a steward rather than Ethereum's "parent, ruler, or final authority." Departures include researchers Carl Beekhuizen, Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, Trent Van Epps, Josh Stark, former co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak, and ecosystem figures Julian Ma and Dankrad Feist. The Foundation now holds less than 0.2% of all ETH, Miyaguchi said.

The conflict centers on whether the EF should remain focused on public-goods research or evolve into a more execution-oriented institution. Former researcher Dankrad Feist publicly floated a separate $1 billion ETH-aligned organization to improve execution and value capture — a direct challenge to the Foundation's model.

Vitalik Buterin pushed back on May 24, arguing critics misread the EF's role. "EF is not a 'center of Ethereum,'" Buterin wrote. "Rather EF is 'one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes.'" He said he does not hold special power over the board.

New protocol team leadership has been tasked with raising the gas limit to 200 million, advancing proposer-builder split work, and pushing mainnet-grade zkEVMs toward 128-bit provable security — technical priorities pointing to a more opinionated direction even as the Foundation rhetorically steps back from centrality.

Zak Cole, a longtime Ethereum contributor, told Laura Shin's Unchained podcast: "The EF is completely out of touch. They're funding hippos in Asia and doing a bunch of stuff nobody in the world gives a s*** about other than Vitalik and his little cabal." Cole added: "Ethereum is no longer a startup. There's billions, trillions of dollars on the line."

Miyaguchi acknowledged the personnel implications. "As EF becomes more focused and more opinionated, the team naturally becomes smaller and more concentrated. That is part of the choice," she wrote, adding that management will provide more details on the new structure in the coming weeks.

At press time, ETH traded at $1,986.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.