Nonprofit grapples with relevance as departures reignite debate over its role in mature ecosystem
The Ethereum Foundation, the Switzerland-based nonprofit founded in 2014 ahead of Ethereum’s launch, has faced renewed questions about its future after eight high-profile staff departures since January 2026, reigniting debate about whether the institution remains meaningful to Ethereum’s sprawling ecosystem.
The departures have prompted criticism from across the crypto industry about the foundation’s direction, focus and relevance. Zak Cole, a longtime Ethereum contributor, said the foundation has lost sight of its core mission. “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 said.
The foundation’s identity crisis reflects a deeper structural tension. When Ethereum launched in 2015, the foundation served as the network’s de facto center of gravity, funding client teams, coordinating developers and shepherding technical upgrades. Over the past decade, Ethereum evolved into the financial backbone for much of crypto, underpinning decentralized finance, stablecoins, tokenized assets and an expanding network of layer-2 chains including Base and Aerodrome. That expansion created a sprawling ecosystem of companies, developers and venture-backed startups, prompting the foundation to deliberately step back from its central role.
Hudson Jameson, former Ethereum Foundation coordinator and now head of ecosystem at Certik, acknowledged the foundation’s shifting identity. “The Ethereum Foundation started as the single sole organization around Ethereum. Over time it has tried to minimize itself in order to raise other organizations and coordinating entities up,” Jameson said. Yet that transition has created ambiguity. “There was still this need for a central coordinator,” he added.
The departures have exposed fault lines about what the foundation should prioritize. Chris Buolos, president of Dromos Labs, offered a measured defense of the institution’s research function. “The EF is at its best as a research org, a credibly neutral convener, and a leading voice for advocacy, standards and roadmap. Having a neutral party in the room when otherwise-competing teams need to align on best practices is worth more than it sometimes gets credit for,” Buolos said.
But Buolos also acknowledged legitimate criticism. “The substantive critique, that direction has been unclear and wasteful and that the app layer has been a secondary concern, is fair. The EF has tried to be many things to many constituencies at once, which is not only difficult to execute on but takes focus away from perhaps more product-oriented players,” he said.
Cole framed the stakes differently. “Ethereum is no longer a startup. It’s a mature and robust ecosystem. There’s billions, trillions of dollars on the line. Livelihoods are dependent on that,” he said.
On May 28, 2026, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, published a lengthy post defending the foundation’s direction. “EF is not a ‘center of Ethereum.’ Rather EF is ‘one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes,'” Buterin wrote. He argued the foundation should pursue longevity over breadth. “The EF is choosing to use its remaining resources to pursue longevity over breadth. The EF focuses specifically on those activities critical to the success of ethereum as a censorship/capture-resistant, open, private and secure system, that would not happen otherwise,” Buterin said.
Jameson linked the departures to deeper communication challenges. “The biggest reason for there to be hoopla every time there is a communication crisis from the Ethereum Foundation is because every cycle we get new people and old people leave,” he said.
Buolos suggested a leaner foundation could better serve the ecosystem. “A smaller org concentrated on the research only it can credibly do, such as post-quantum work, privacy, neutrality and other long-horizon questions that don’t have a commercial sponsor, is probably a healthier shape than the sprawl of the last few years. The talent loss is real and the transition will be painful, but a leaner org aimed at hard problems with long timelines is useful to the ecosystem,” Buolos said.
