Top Talent Is Leaving the EF. What Happens to ETH Now?

Ethereum's absence from the center of the 2024 hype cycle was historically unprecedented, as every prior cycle since 2013 had featured it prominently. ETH's price rose in 2024 but significantly underperformed Bitcoin and Solana, high-profile community members including Eric Connor quit or made critical public statements, and the project's strategic direction came under sustained scrutiny.

Aya Miyaguchi's departure as executive director led to a co-executive director structure pairing Tomasz Stronciuk and Shouwei Wang. Stronciuk brought genuine executive experience from building Nethermind and under his leadership the EF deployed funds into DeFi for the first time and placed greater emphasis on promoting Ethereum projects. Laura Shin characterized Wang's qualification as primarily her closeness to Vitalik. Stronciuk left after eleven months, and Shin argues the EF subsequently reverted to a more ideological, cypherpunk-aligned direction associated with Vitalik's preferences. A mandate published by the new co-executive directors generated significant controversy, with rumors that EF members were pressured to sign it.

At least eight EF members have left in the last couple of months of 2025. Shin identified the departures of Tim Beiko, Barnabe Monnot, and Alex Stokes as particularly alarming because they were protocol leads, though Stokes is described as on sabbatical rather than a confirmed departure. Departing members have offered only ambiguous public explanations, and the lack of transparency from the EF is viewed as a serious problem. Dolores noted that Dankrad's departure to join Tempo, which was incubated by Stripe, and David Hoffman's departure are further signals that people with a competitive mindset are leaving the Foundation.

Danny Ryan had significant community support to become executive director but instead joined Etherealize, an organization focused on courting Wall Street institutions. Dan Krat argued that the Ethereum ecosystem suffers from insufficient strategy, coordination, and investment of resources relative to competitors, and that resources available inside the ecosystem are small compared to many companies and other blockchain projects. He proposed a permanently funded feedback-loop mechanism rather than simply creating another foundation, though he acknowledged a deeper crisis would likely be required before such a structure could actually be built.

The real turning point in Ethereum's economic thesis was identified as the moment stablecoins began replacing native currencies in monetary applications, breaking the earlier assumption that on-chain activity would predominantly use ETH. ICOs and early NFTs had been priced in ETH, forming the basis of earlier planning, but that market structure changed and the EF, composed largely of researchers rather than strategic thinkers, failed to recognize the shift. The current L2 model failed to achieve the goal of fees accruing back to the L1, L2s remained effectively separate chains and never reached stage two, and this represented a strategic pivot the community never formally made. Ethereum continues to dominate lending protocols but lost significant ground on trading activity, which had been its largest fee generator.

Dan Krat warned that if Ethereum became only a store of value it would be a risky path because Bitcoin is already stronger in that role, drawing a parallel to Bitcoin's store-of-value narrative emerging not by design but because Bitcoin lost the ability to coordinate. The regulatory shift away from the Gary Gensler era reduced Ethereum's credible neutrality advantage, and the William Hinman declaration of Ethereum as sufficiently decentralized was identified as belonging to a prior regulatory era that no longer applies. Solana gained ground by offering utility, a more relaxed regulatory environment, and openness to activity Ethereum was not pursuing.

William argued that the Ethereum Foundation, the Ethereum platform, and ETH as a currency are three distinct things that should not be conflated. He said the Foundation grew to nearly 300 people after hiring Stronciuk and building out an ecosystem group, which he considered too large, and that the current reduction is intentional. Six or seven people have already left with more departures planned, and the remaining core group will focus on protocol research, maintenance, two upgrades per year, quantum readiness, and ERC standards propagation. The Foundation's explicit goal is for the broader ecosystem to become less dependent on it. The open question is how the Ethereum community will organize to maintain its leadership now that the Foundation is clearly stepping back, with Dankrad having proposed a new organization and Shin having emphasized the need for greater focus on tokenomics.