Ethereum enters its second decade after a year of upheaval at the foundation

On July 30, 2015, Ethereum launched with an ambitious vision: to become a decentralized world computer. Eleven years later, the blockchain has evolved into the base layer for billions of dollars in tokenized assets and the settlement layer underpinning much of decentralized finance. Yet as Ethereum enters its second decade, the story is no longer just about the network itself. It is also about the institution that has helped steward it since the beginning, and how that institution has been fundamentally reshaped over the last year.

Few periods in Ethereum’s history have brought as much change to the Ethereum Foundation as the past year has. What began as mounting frustration from developers, investors and community members over the foundation’s pace of execution ultimately became the catalyst for the most significant organizational overhaul since Ethereum’s launch. Leadership changes, staff departures and structural reforms have transformed not only how the foundation operates, but also the nature of its role within an ecosystem that has grown far beyond any single organization.

The criticism had been building for months. As competing blockchains moved aggressively to try to attract developers and users, some members of Ethereum’s community questioned whether the foundation had become too inward-looking and too slow to adapt. Calls for greater transparency, clearer priorities and stronger execution grew louder, placing unprecedented scrutiny on an organization that has traditionally preferred to work in silence behind the scenes.

That pressure culminated in sweeping internal changes. Over the past 7 months, nine senior members departed the Ethereum Foundation, including co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, whose resignations marked the end of an experiment in dual leadership that had itself been introduced as part of an earlier restructuring effort. The foundation also reduced its workforce by 20% through layoffs, underscoring a broader effort to redefine its mission and focus resources more deliberately.

The reorganization wasn’t simply about changing leadership. In March, the foundation published its first formal mandate, effectively a manifesto for how it intends to operate going forward. At its core is a framework known as CROPS: Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy and Security, which the foundation described as the non-negotiable principles that should guide every technical and organizational decision. The document also makes another notable commitment: that the foundation’s long-term success should be measured by its ability to reduce its own influence over Ethereum, reflecting a belief that the ecosystem should increasingly stand on its own rather than depend on a single institution to guide it.