Ethereum Foundation
A non-profit coordinator supporting the Ethereum ecosystem
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About Ethereum Foundation
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is a nonprofit supporting the Ethereum network. It coordinates protocol R&D, funds ecosystem projects, and maintains neutral public-good infrastructure. Its mandate centers on CROPS: censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security. Core activities include running Devcon, operating bug bounties, issuing grants, publishing client specs, and supporting research.
EF positions itself as a non-owner steward that must eventually become less necessary. It aims to keep Ethereum credibly neutral and resilient against capture or censorship, while enabling user self-sovereignty through verifiable, non-custodial pathways.
In the past six months (2026-03-05 to 2026-09-05), EF underwent major restructuring. It cut roughly 40% of its 2026 budget and reduced staff by about 20% (54 positions), moving toward an endowment-style long-term model. Several senior leaders departed. The organization reorganized into clusters: protocol, access, user, community, institution, operations, and management. It also published an on-chain mandate and continued prioritizing CROPS-aligned work. Negative developments include layoffs, capability loss, and criticism that the restructuring reduced focus on some ecosystem programs.
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) was initially defined by token sale documents to complete a limited scope of work, finishing its original milestones by 2022. In 2025, EF initiated a major restructuring: it disbanded the Protocol Support team, affecting core development coordination and the EPF plan; cut its budget by 40%, shifting toward a long-term endowment model with annual spending reduced from ~15% to ~5% of remaining funds. EF redefined its core mission around CROPS (censorship resistance, openness, privacy, security), focusing on irreplaceable protocol-layer work. It also fostered external nodes: Ethlabs was founded with several EF researchers joining, and EF fulfilled its five-year funding commitment to Argot Collective, unlocking ~4,938 stETH in batches. Technologically, EF used AI for red-team testing, discovering real vulnerabilities, and recruited a protocol security researcher specializing in AI-assisted vulnerability mining and hard-fork review. It also published a basic guide to Ethereum for governments and financial institutions.
In the past six months (March to September 2026), the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has launched several strategic initiatives. In March, it published the "EF Mandate," reaffirming Ethereum's core mission to protect user sovereignty and emphasizing the importance of neutral infrastructure. In June, it announced a major organizational restructuring, cutting about 20% of staff (54 people) and establishing five clusters: protocol, access, community, institutional, and operations, to focus on key tasks. In July, it released "Ethereum for Governments and Institutions" to promote adoption by public sectors and institutions. In Q2 2026, it allocated approximately $5.5 million to support zero-knowledge proofs, client diversity, formal verification, and open-source tools.
Future priorities: According to the new structure, the EF will focus on scaling L1 and blob capacity, supporting L2 security and interoperability, improving liquidity, investing in native rollup technology, and addressing fragmentation in the multi-chain ecosystem. Additionally, through the mandate and institutional guide, it aims to strengthen Ethereum's role as neutral infrastructure and drive global institutional adoption.
Co-founder: Vitalik Buterin (Founder, Twitter: @vitalikbuterin)
Current core executives:
- Aya Miyaguchi (Chair)
- Christian Reitwiessner (Lead Developer)
- Bastian Aue (Co-Executive Director)
- Aerwo (Interim Co-Executive Director)
- Nicolas Consigny (Coordinator)
- Luc van Kampen (ERC & Standards Coordinator)
- Adrian Li (Founder Success Team Lead)
- Emily Rasowsky (Coordinator Team Member)
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.