Ethereum Foundation Shakes Up Core Team in Strategic Rebrand—Staff Cuts Follow

In a move that screams ’corporate spring cleaning,’ the Ethereum Foundation just rebranded its core team and axed staff—because nothing says decentralization like a good old-fashioned reorg.

While the crypto faithful spin this as ’streamlining for scalability,’ Wall Street skeptics are already snickering into their lattes. After all, when has rebranding ever fixed a bear market?

Pro tip: Watch where those laid-off devs land next. Talent migrations tend to signal where the real innovation’s brewing.

In brief

• The Ethereum Foundation renames its core team “Protocol” and lays off several employees.
• Three key priorities: improve performance, speed up transactions, and simplify usage.
• The goal: prepare Ethereum for mass adoption in the face of competition from other cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum continues its overhaul and tightens its workforce

On June 2, the Ethereum Foundation officially transformed its protocol research and development team (PR&D). This unit, a technical pillar of the crypto ecosystem, is now simply called “Protocol” with a redefined mission.

The new structure revolves around three strategic priorities:

• Optimize scaling of Ethereum’s base layer (L1) to address criticisms about throughput limitations
• Expand the blob space for rollups, the solutions that decongest the main network
• Drastically improve the user experience, a true barrier to mass adoption

“This protocol shipping process is complicated because it requires us to proactively respond to requests that are hard to articulate and even harder to satisfy“, admits the Foundation. This unusual transparency reveals the scale of the technical challenges ahead.

According to the Foundation, this period marks a pivotal moment to “deploy Ethereum’s technology and values on a global scale“. An ambition that goes beyond the technical framework to embrace a societal vision.

This restructuring comes with a workforce cleanup. Some members of the former PR&D team are permanently leaving the organization.

At the same time, recognized figures such as Tim Beiko, Alex Stokes, and Barnabé Monnot are assigned specific responsibilities in the new areas of intervention.

Protocol is now a more united and lighter organization, with more targeted teams.

A year of upheavals in the crypto ecosystem

This restructuring comes after several months of major organizational transformations. In January, internal tensions peaked with the departure of Eric Conner, lead developer, following disagreements with Vitalik Buterin over project governance.

These conflicts led Buterin to revisit the leadership model. He now favors technical expertise and better communication with developers. This approach addresses criticism about excessive power concentration around the co-founder.

In April, the Foundation formalized a clear separation between its board of directors and its executive functions.

Two new co-directors took charge: Hsiao-Wei Wang, a recognized Ethereum researcher, and Tomasz Stańczak, CEO of Nethermind. This new organization frees Buterin from operational duties to focus on long-term strategy.

This reshuffle comes at a crucial time for the crypto ecosystem. Advances in zero-knowledge rollups (zkEVM) and layer 2 technologies bring Ethereum closer to massive adoption. But competition intensifies with the emergence of faster alternative blockchains and growing institutional interest.

By rethinking its technical structure from the ground up, Ethereum is fighting for its survival against fierce competition. This radical overhaul, despite immediate turbulence, marks a historic turning point for the blockchain. Will this new organization be able to propel the platform toward the long-awaited mass adoption?

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