The Ethereum Foundation (EF) today announced a significant restructuring, marking the culmination of a months-long strategic realignment aimed at enhancing its operational efficiency and focus. This organizational metamorphosis, driven by the implementation of its new Mandate and Treasury Management Policy, introduces a streamlined structure comprising seven distinct clusters. However, this transformation also entails a reduction in personnel, with 54 colleagues, approximately 20% of the EF’s workforce, departing the organization. Many of these individuals are expected to continue their contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem in new capacities.
This strategic pivot comes at a pivotal moment for Ethereum, a blockchain network that has grown exponentially since its inception in 2015. The EF, as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and advancing the Ethereum protocol, plays a crucial role in its development and adoption. The recent reorganization is rooted in a desire to ensure the EF is optimally equipped to tackle the complex challenges and opportunities facing Ethereum in the coming years, particularly concerning its core principles of scalability, self-sovereignty, and decentralization.
A Refined Operational Framework: The Seven Clusters
The newly established structure at the Ethereum Foundation is built around seven specialized clusters, each designed to address specific domains crucial to Ethereum’s continued growth and evolution. This cluster-based approach allows for tailored strategies and accountability, reflecting the diverse needs of different aspects of the Ethereum ecosystem.
The five core domains of work are categorized as:
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Protocol Layer: This cluster inherits the EF’s foundational responsibility for the Ethereum protocol itself. Its primary objective is to fortify and scale the protocol, ensuring it upholds its core tenets of censorship and capture resistance, open-source accessibility, privacy, and security. The work here is focused on long-term protocol advancement, prioritizing robustness and self-sovereignty over short-term marketability or ease of integration with centralized financial systems. Key initiatives include safely executing network upgrades (forks), reducing complexity, minimizing reliance on trusted third parties, defending against malicious transaction ordering (MEV) and privileged order flow, and advancing cutting-edge research such as post-quantum cryptography and zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs) into tangible protocol improvements. The goal is to make Ethereum more resilient to corruption and capture, and more dependable in times of counterparty failure, censorship, or overreach by intermediaries.
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Access Layer: This cluster is dedicated to ensuring that Ethereum’s core properties of censorship resistance, privacy, and security (collectively referred to as CROPS) are practically accessible to individuals. Its mandate covers critical user actions such as reading blockchain data, transacting, proving identity or ownership, delegating stake, and exiting the network. The focus is on enabling users and their agents to interact with the chain securely and privately, without reliance on unverifiable intermediaries. This includes developing interfaces from silicon to frontend that are verifiable, understandable, and recoverable, regardless of user technical expertise. A key principle is the "zero option," ensuring that for every path involving an intermediary, a credible intermediary-free alternative exists and remains accessible.
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User Layer: Grounded in the practical needs of individuals and organizations utilizing Ethereum, this cluster focuses on understanding the most critical capabilities, severe failure modes, and acceptable trade-offs for self-sovereign use. Its work encompasses identifying user segments, developing personas, creating educational materials, conducting use-case research, and evaluating the impact of EF initiatives. The aim is not to transform the EF into a product development studio, but rather to ensure that decisions made at the Protocol and Access layers are informed by the realities faced by current and potential users, as well as by concrete measures of self-sovereignty.
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Community Layer: This cluster defines how the EF engages with the broader world, both within and outside the Ethereum ecosystem. Its responsibility is to clearly articulate the EF’s values and distinguish them from speculative financial crypto, compromised corporate crypto, and passive, grant-managing non-profits susceptible to geopolitical influence. The EF is committed to maximizing its community value by maintaining independence from such entanglements. Furthermore, this cluster cultivates relationships with external communities that share Ethereum’s ethos, including free and open-source software, secure hardware, privacy and cryptography research, civil liberties advocacy, and public-interest technology. The objective is to foster productive and high-quality intersections between Ethereum and these allied fields.
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Institutional Layer: This cluster focuses on the EF’s engagement with institutions that influence how end-users interact with Ethereum through intermediated pathways. This includes financial institutions (payments, insurance), non-financial enterprises (manufacturing, publishing), government agencies, and academic or non-profit groups. The overarching goal is to showcase effective integrations of Ethereum and cryptographic technologies that enhance CROPS properties for both institutions and users. This involves ensuring fair and correct execution, data portability, practical exit strategies, privacy protection, data authenticity, and misbehavior detection. The EF believes that many organizations will find it beneficial to serve users in ways that strengthen self-sovereignty while retaining necessary guarantees for value creation and mission fulfillment. This cluster will also contribute to establishing best practices, standards, reference architectures, and educational materials for institutional adoption, and engage with academics and advocacy groups to ensure Ethereum is accurately understood and to monitor policy and regulatory developments.
Complementing these five specialized domains are two additional clusters:
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Operations Cluster: This cluster manages the internal administrative and logistical functions necessary for the EF’s day-to-day operations, ensuring smooth functioning across all other departments.
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Management and Support Cluster: This cluster comprises leadership and teams directly assisting management, providing strategic guidance and oversight to ensure the EF’s mission alignment and effective execution.
A Difficult Transition: Supporting Departing Colleagues
The organizational restructuring necessitated difficult decisions regarding personnel. The departure of 54 colleagues represents a significant, though strategically necessary, reduction in the EF’s workforce. The Foundation has emphasized its commitment to supporting these individuals through this transition.
Each departing employee is being offered a comprehensive package designed to facilitate their next steps. This includes severance pay calculated as the higher of one month’s salary per year of service at the EF or the amount mandated by local jurisdiction. This policy mirrors the severance offered to employees in previous departures. In addition to financial support, the transition package provides assistance in identifying new opportunities within the Ethereum ecosystem and a small grant to cover individual transition expenses, such as career coaching.
The EF expressed profound gratitude for the talent, dedication, and time contributed by each of the departing colleagues. The organization anticipates that many of these individuals will continue to be valuable contributors to Ethereum’s future from their new roles within the broader ecosystem.
Background and Chronology of the Reorganization
The current restructuring is not an isolated event but rather the culmination of a strategic planning process that has been underway for several months. The impetus for this reorganization stems from the Ethereum Foundation’s ongoing efforts to adapt to the evolving landscape of the blockchain industry and to ensure its long-term effectiveness in supporting the Ethereum protocol.
The initial groundwork for this strategic realignment likely began in late 2023 or early 2024, with internal reviews of existing structures, operational inefficiencies, and future strategic priorities. This period would have involved extensive discussions among EF leadership, stakeholders, and potentially external advisors, to identify areas for improvement and define a new organizational blueprint.
The development and formalization of the EF’s new Mandate and the Treasury Management Policy, referenced in the announcement, represent key milestones in this process. The Mandate likely outlines the updated mission, vision, and core objectives of the EF, providing a strategic compass for its future activities. The Treasury Management Policy, in turn, addresses how the EF’s financial resources will be managed and deployed to achieve these objectives, likely with a greater emphasis on sustainable and impactful allocation. The public announcement of the Treasury Management Policy on June 4, 2025, suggests this policy was a finalized component before the broader organizational changes were implemented.
The months leading up to today’s announcement would have been dedicated to the meticulous planning and execution of the organizational restructuring. This included defining the scope and responsibilities of the new clusters, reallocating resources, and identifying the necessary personnel for each area. The difficult process of staff reductions would have occurred during this phase, involving careful consideration and adherence to employment laws and ethical practices.
Today’s announcement signifies the official launch of the new EF structure. The EF has indicated that further details about the specific activities and functions within each cluster will be shared in the coming weeks and months. This phased communication strategy allows for a controlled rollout of information and provides time for the newly structured teams to fully integrate and operationalize their mandates.
Data and Context: The Ethereum Ecosystem
The Ethereum blockchain, launched on July 30, 2015, has evolved into the world’s leading smart contract platform. Its native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), consistently ranks among the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, often second only to Bitcoin. As of mid-2024, Ethereum’s market capitalization has fluctuated significantly but remains in the hundreds of billions of dollars, reflecting its substantial economic impact and user adoption.
The ecosystem surrounding Ethereum is vast and multifaceted, encompassing decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and a burgeoning Web3 infrastructure. The EF’s role is crucial in fostering this ecosystem by supporting core development, research, and public goods initiatives that benefit the entire network.
The decision to reduce staff by approximately 20% is a substantial organizational change. While specific figures for the EF’s total employee count are not publicly disclosed, industry benchmarks for similar non-profit technology organizations suggest this could represent dozens of highly skilled individuals. This move signals a deliberate effort to optimize resources and focus on core strategic priorities, potentially indicating a shift towards greater capital efficiency or a reallocation of funds towards specific, high-impact projects.
The implementation of a formal Treasury Management Policy is also a significant development. In the volatile cryptocurrency market, robust financial governance is paramount. A well-defined policy ensures that the EF’s financial assets are managed prudently, safeguarding them against market downturns and ensuring they are deployed effectively to achieve the foundation’s long-term goals. This policy, coupled with the new structural framework, aims to provide greater financial stability and strategic clarity for the EF.
Potential Reactions and Implications
The EF’s announcement is likely to elicit a range of reactions from the Ethereum community and the broader blockchain industry.
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Community Support: Many within the Ethereum community are likely to view the restructuring as a positive step towards greater focus and efficiency. The emphasis on core principles like censorship resistance and self-sovereignty, particularly within the Protocol and Access layers, will resonate with those who prioritize the decentralization ethos of Ethereum. The clear articulation of the EF’s mission and its differentiation from more financially driven or centralized crypto entities could also be welcomed.
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Concerns for Departing Colleagues: While the EF has outlined support for departing employees, the human element of staff reductions is always a point of concern. The ecosystem will be watching to see how successfully these individuals transition into new roles, potentially strengthening other projects and organizations within the Ethereum space. Their continued contributions are vital to the network’s overall health.
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Industry Analysis: Blockchain industry analysts will likely examine the EF’s new structure for insights into future development priorities. The distinct roles of each cluster, especially the emphasis on user experience and institutional adoption, could signal strategic shifts in how the EF intends to drive Ethereum’s growth. The move towards a leaner, more focused organization might also influence how other foundations and organizations in the blockchain space approach their own operational strategies and resource allocation.
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Market Implications: While the EF is not directly involved in market-making, its strategic decisions can have indirect implications. A more efficient and focused EF, better equipped to address technical and adoption challenges, could contribute to increased confidence in Ethereum’s long-term prospects, potentially influencing investor sentiment.
Looking Ahead: A Focused Future for Ethereum
The Ethereum Foundation’s reorganization represents a significant strategic evolution, aiming to sharpen its focus and enhance its effectiveness in supporting the continued development and adoption of the Ethereum protocol. By establishing a clear, cluster-based structure and reinforcing its commitment to core principles, the EF is positioning itself to navigate the complexities of the rapidly evolving blockchain landscape.
The coming weeks and months will be crucial as the EF elaborates on the specific initiatives and goals within each of its new clusters. The success of this reorganization will ultimately be measured by its ability to foster innovation, strengthen Ethereum’s core properties, and expand its reach to a broader audience, all while upholding its commitment to decentralization and user empowerment. The continued contributions of its dedicated team, both those remaining and those embarking on new ventures within the ecosystem, will be instrumental in realizing this vision.
