Ethereum Foundation Shakes Up R&D: ’Protocol’ Division Emerges as New Powerhouse

In a move signaling sharper focus—or just corporate rebranding theater—the Ethereum Foundation quietly pivots its R&D arm to ’Protocol.’ No new funding, no grand roadmap—just a nameplate swap while devs keep grinding. TradFi boardrooms would charge $2M for this ’transformation.’

The rebrand hints at Ethereum’s endgame: protocol-first infrastructure, not academic experiments. Vitalik’s empire consolidates as ETH 2.0’s stakes get higher—literally. Meanwhile, crypto VCs scramble to mint ’Protocol’ themed investment theses by EOD.

One question lingers: When foundations reshuffle deck chairs, do they know the iceberg’s already melting?

Ethereum Foundation rebrands R&D division to Protocol

Aside from laying off some of its members, the foundation is rebranding its Protocol Research and Development division, renaming it to just  “Protocol.” 

With the rebrand, the foundation hopes to focus on its new priorities: scaling the Ethereum base LAYER and blobspace and improving user experience. It has called on all teams within Protocol to help drive these initiatives forward. The Foundation emphasizes that the rebrand was completely necessary, seeing how their work in zero-knowledge rollups (zkEVMs) and layer-2 technologies is pushing the blockchain closer to large-scale adoption.

While the foundation has yet to disclose how many staff members it laid off, it insisted that the new team will continue to lead Ethereum’s Core development and improve public access to upgrade schedules, technical resources, and research outputs.

Hsiao-Wei Weng, co-executive director at Ethereum Foundation, also shared on X that he hopes the new structure will encourage their staff to focus and drive key initiatives forward.

Additionally, he acknowledged Tim Beiko, Alex Stokes, and Barnabé Monnot for their work in restructuring the Protocol team.

The Ethereum Foundation has been instituting changes to its leadership and structure

The Ethereum Foundation has been making changes to its structure and leadership since the start of the year.

In January, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced the model’s leadership reforms, arguing that they needed to address key challenges stalling the platform’s competitiveness. At the time, he claimed the EF WOULD aim to improve communication with ecosystem stakeholders and ensure privacy, open-source innovation, and censorship resistance. 

Moreover, he argued that the leadership changes would bring fresh talent, improve execution ability, and make EF more actively supportive of app builders.

However, his announcement was soon followed by internal friction and heated discussions over the foundation’s strategic priorities and transparency standards. Some critics even pointed out the foundation’s failure to improve transaction speeds or draw in more developers compared to rival Solana. The foundation also faced complaints about its high transaction fees, stalled expansion, and leadership stagnation.

The foundation added a division between its board and executive functions in April. A month before that, the EF made Hsiao-Wei Wang, a longtime Ethereum researcher, and Tomasz Stańczak, CEO of infrastructure company Nethermind, its new co-executive directors. Aya Miyaguchi also left her directorial role to be the foundation’s new president. In addition, a former EF researcher, Danny Ryan, joined Etherealize, a project focused on infusing ETH to Wall Street.

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