Ethereum Foundation

In 2014, the Ethereum Foundation was formally registered in Zug, Switzerland, founded by Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, and launched its genesis presale in July, raising about 31,000 BTC (then ~$18M).

On July 30, 2015, Ethereum's mainnet launched with the Frontier release, marking the network's official start, with the Ethereum Foundation since funding core protocol R&D and the global developer ecosystem.

In 2016, The DAO was drained of about $60M (3.6M ETH) via a smart contract exploit, splitting the community and forking Ethereum into two chains: ETH and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

Between 2016 and 2021, Ethereum rolled out Homestead, Metropolis and Byzantium upgrades, and the 2021 London upgrade (EIP-1559) introduced fee burning, steadily expanding functionality and scalability.

The Beacon Chain launched in December 2020 to begin the shift to Proof-of-Stake; in September 2022 "The Merge" replaced mining with staking, cutting energy use ~99% and daily issuance from ~13K to 1,700 ETH.

In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation reshuffled leadership: Aya Miyaguchi became board chair while Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were named co-executive directors, publishing an "Infinite Garden" vision.

In June 2026, the Ethereum Foundation underwent a major restructuring, cutting about 54 staff (~20%) and trimming its budget by roughly 40%, reorganizing around five layers: protocol, access, user, community and institutional.

On May 11, 2026 the Ethereum Foundation reshuffled its Protocol Cluster: Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko stepped down, Alex Stokes took a sabbatical, and Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn and Fredrik Svantes became co-leads covering zkVM, protocol security and post-quantum work; co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak had already left in February, at least eight senior people departed during the year, and roles were cut by about 20% with the budget reduced roughly 40%.

On the technical side, Glamsterdam activated on Sepolia on October 6 (epoch 353,024), headlined by EIP-7732 enshrined proposer-builder separation and EIP-7928 block-level access lists, alongside EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 repricing state creation and state access; Hoodi and mainnet dates are undecided, with the roadmap pointing to Q4 2026. Devnets completed end-to-end ePBS tests and an interoperability session in Svalbard, targeting a 200 million gas limit after mainnet. In May the Ethereum Foundation unstaked 21,271 ETH (about $49.6 million) from Lido for operations and grants.

Cutting annual treasury spending from about 15% to 5% by 2030 buys the Ethereum Foundation permanence: 54 roles, roughly a fifth of headcount, were traded for concentrating the protocol cluster on Glamsterdam, while institutional adoption and coordination move to outside bodies such as EthLabs. The funding gap pushes governance toward the protocol layer, which is why a proposal to redirect 0-10% of staking rewards to client teams and public goods has gained weight, and why research is filtered through the CROPS lens. If mainnet ships in the fourth quarter, that division of labour — do less, do the base layer — will have been validated — with coordination costs and execution risk shifted to teams outside the foundation.

Aya Miyaguchi is president of the Ethereum Foundation. From Nagoya, she holds a literature degree from Nanzan and an MBA from San Francisco State, taught high school, joined Kraken in 2013 as Japan lead, became executive director in 2018 and president in 2025.

Bastian Aue is interim executive director; he stepped into the co-executive role when Stanczak left in February 2026 and carried the transition alone after Wang departed in June. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and board member, is a Russian-born Canadian who published the Ethereum whitepaper at nineteen in 2013; he no longer runs anything day to day, only advising the board. Hsiao-Wei Wang, former co-executive director, is from Taiwan, joined research in 2017, led consensus work on the Beacon Chain and the Merge, was promoted in April 2025 and quit a year later. Tim Beiko, protocol adviser, joined full time in 2018, chaired All Core Devs from 2021, moved to an advisory seat in January 2026 and left the protocol group in May. Research and operations report to the executive director.

Ethereum Foundation has undergone significant team changes recently. From March to August 2026, multiple core members departed, including Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang, Core Contributor Josh Stark, Ecosystem Contributor Trent Van Epps, Research Scientists Barnabé Monnot and Julian Ma, Privacy Coordinator Igor Barinov, and others. The departures span research, privacy, ecosystem, and developer acceleration roles, with some members having served only briefly. These changes are linked to internal restructuring and strategic shifts, following earlier high-level exits.