The Ethereum Foundation enters 2026 under increasing pressure. Developers, investors, and prominent Ethereum community members have spent months criticizing the organization’s pace of execution, governance, and technical priorities, with many claiming that Ethereum’s roadmap focuses too much on layer 2 scaling and ignores base layer improvements.
The first major change to the foundation occurred in February, when co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak announced he was stepping down after helping guide the foundation through an initial reorganization. A few weeks later, the Foundation announced a new directive outlining a narrower vision for its role within the Ethereum ecosystem. Built around the CROPS framework (Censorship Resistance, Resilience, Openness, Privacy, and Security), this document repositioned us as long-term stewards of the ecosystem, rather than its primary builders and moderators.
The change in leadership was followed by a series of departures. In the months that followed, nine senior Foundation leaders, researchers, and executives left the organization, marking one of the largest periods of turnover in its 12-year history. The departure fueled speculation about the Foundation’s future, even though Foundation leaders insisted that the changes were not a sign of decline, but rather a necessary part of a broader reorganization.
