TLDR
- The Ethereum Foundation continues to see high-profile departures with Carl Beek and Julian Ma announcing their resignations.
- Previous exits this year include Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, Trent Van Epps, Alex Stokes, and former co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak.
- In 2025, the organization released a new mandate defining CROPs principles and repositioning its ecosystem role.
- Controversy emerged when employees were allegedly required to sign loyalty commitments tied to the new mandate.
- The exodus has triggered widespread discussion about leadership stability and organizational direction.
The Ethereum Foundation’s personnel challenges are mounting. This Monday brought announcements from both Carl Beek and Julian Ma regarding their departures from the organization, continuing a troubling trend that has captured widespread attention in the cryptocurrency sector.
Beek’s tenure spans seven years at the Foundation. His primary contributions centered on developing Ethereum’s Beacon Chain, a crucial component that enabled the network’s historic transition to proof-of-stake validation in 2022. He confirmed May 29 as his final working day.
Ma’s involvement with the organization lasted approximately four years. His expertise focused on mechanism design, cryptoeconomic theory, and protocol optimization. Among his achievements, he co-developed EIP-7805, designed to enhance censorship resistance mechanisms, and spearheaded research that reduced Layer 2 to mainnet bridging times to just 13 seconds.
These resignations extend an already significant talent drain. Tomasz Stańczak resigned from his co-executive director position in February, barely one year into his appointment. Josh Stark departed in March following a seven-year commitment.
Additional prominent departures include Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, both influential contributors to Ethereum‘s core protocol development. Trent Van Epps, instrumental in establishing Protocol Guild—a funding mechanism supporting Ethereum core developers—also exited during recent months. Alex Stokes, previously serving as co-lead of the Protocol cluster, began a sabbatical earlier this month.
Last June saw Péter Szilágyi’s departure after nearly ten years with the Foundation. He developed Geth, which remains Ethereum’s dominant execution client.
Internal Transformation at the Ethereum Foundation
The organization underwent significant reorganization throughout 2025 following ecosystem feedback. Community members had expressed dissatisfaction regarding execution velocity, operational transparency, and ecosystem support amid intensifying blockchain competition.
The restructuring included appointing co-executive directors with enhanced technical credentials. Vitalik Buterin simultaneously increased his public presence in articulating Ethereum’s development trajectory.
Earlier this year, the Foundation released a mandate articulating CROPs principles—Censorship resistance, Open source, Privacy, and Security. The framework emphasized the Foundation’s position not as Ethereum’s governing authority, but as one stakeholder among many.
Yet controversy erupted over reports that employees faced requirements to sign loyalty commitments connected to this mandate. Additional backlash emerged from the document’s references to the Milady online community, alienating segments of Ethereum’s user base.
The Foundation declined to provide commentary on these developments.
What Happens Next
The Foundation has publicly committed to diminishing its centralized influence as Ethereum’s ecosystem matures. Whether this succession of departures will impact that decentralization strategy remains an open question.
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