Why did a core member of the Ethereum Foundation leave again after less than a year in office?

Has EF Changed Leaders Again? Guard E: “I’m Used to It”

Author: bootly, Bitpush News

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is once again at a crossroads of personnel upheaval.

Tomasz Stańczak, Co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, announced he will step down at the end of this month. Just 11 months after he and Hsiao-Wei Wang jointly succeeded the long-time leader Aya Miyaguchi in March last year, forming a new leadership core.

He will be succeeded by Bastian Aue. Very little public information is available about him; his X account was registered only eight months ago, with almost no public statements. He will continue to co-lead the organization that controls core resources and direction of the Ethereum ecosystem alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang.

This seemingly sudden personnel change is actually the inevitable result of internal conflicts within the Ethereum Foundation, external pressures, and strategic transformation intertwined.

Taking on the Role in a Year of Turmoil

To understand Stańczak’s departure, we must first look back at the context when he took office.

Early 2025, the Ethereum community was in a state of anxiety. At that time, following the US elections, the cryptocurrency market was generally bullish, with Bitcoin hitting new highs repeatedly, and competitors like Solana gaining momentum. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s price performance was relatively weak, and the Foundation itself became a target of criticism.

Criticism was mainly directed at then-Executive Director Miyaguchi. Developer communities complained that the Foundation was seriously out of touch with frontline builders, had conflicting strategic interests, and was insufficiently promoting Ethereum. Some questioned whether the Foundation was too “laid-back,” adopting a “coordinator” rather than a “leader” role, which was seen as causing Ethereum to lose its first-mover advantage.

As the “central bank” of Ethereum, the Foundation was expected to act decisively, not remain passive.

Amid this wave of public opinion, Miyaguchi stepped back into the board, and Stańczak and Wang were thrust into the spotlight, taking on the crisis.

Stańczak was not an outsider. He is the founder of Nethermind, one of the core execution clients in the Ethereum ecosystem, a key player in infrastructure development. He is technically skilled, entrepreneurial, and has a deep understanding of community pain points.

He has said that when he took office, the instructions were clear: “The community is calling out — you’re too chaotic, you need to be more centralized and accelerate, to cope with this critical period.”

What did he do in that year?

The combination of Stańczak and Wang indeed brought visible changes.

First, organizational efficiency. The Foundation cut 19 staff members, streamlined its structure, and tried to shed its bureaucratic image. The strategic focus shifted back to Layer 1, explicitly prioritizing mainnet scaling over Layer 2 fragmentation. The upgrade pace accelerated, with more decisive progress on EIPs.

Second, attitude adjustment. The Foundation began releasing a series of videos on social media, proactively explaining Ethereum’s technical roadmap and development directions. This “outreach” approach contrasted with the previous relatively closed and mysterious image.

Strategically, Stańczak pushed exploration into new areas: privacy protection, quantum computing threats, AI integration with Ethereum. Especially in AI, he expressed clear optimism about the trend of “agent-based systems” and “AI-assisted discovery” reshaping the world.

Financially, the Foundation started discussing more transparent budgeting and fund allocation strategies, attempting to address external concerns about fund efficiency.

Vitalik Buterin commented on Stańczak: “He has helped greatly improve the efficiency of several departments within the Foundation, making the organization more agile in responding to the outside world.”

The Subtext of the Departure Statement

Less than a year in, why leave?

Stańczak’s departure statement was quite candid and somewhat thought-provoking. He provided several key points:

First, he believes the Ethereum Foundation and the entire ecosystem are “in good health.” The time has come for a handover.

Second, he wants to return to being a “hands-on product builder,” focusing on the integration of AI and Ethereum. He said his current mindset is similar to when he founded Nethermind in 2017.

Third—and most intriguingly—he said: “The Foundation’s leadership is increasingly confident in making decisions and controlling more affairs themselves. Over time, my ability to independently execute within the Foundation has diminished. If I continue, by 2026 I will mostly be just ‘waiting to hand over.’”

This reveals two implications: one, the new leadership team has developed self-motivation and no longer needs his intervention; two, his actual decision-making power may be shrinking—something that doesn’t suit someone used to direct involvement and with a strong entrepreneurial temperament.

He also mentioned, “I know many ideas about agent-based AI are immature or even useless right now, but it’s through these experimental games that the early Ethereum spirit of innovation is defined.”

This somewhat hints at a critique of the current state: as the organization matures and decision-making becomes more “steady,” does the wild, experimental spirit of early Ethereum risk being lost?

Stańczak’s departure appears personal, but behind it lies the long-standing dilemma faced by the Ethereum Foundation.

Since its inception, the organization has been in an awkward position. In theory, Ethereum is decentralized, and the Foundation shouldn’t be a central authority. But in practice, it controls substantial funds, key developer resources, and ecosystem coordination discourse, effectively playing a dual role as “central bank” and “regulatory body.”

This identity paradox has led to a long-standing dilemma: doing too much invites accusations of centralization; doing too little invites criticism of inaction. Miyaguchi’s era leaned toward a “coordinator” role, which was seen as weak; Stańczak’s attempt to shift toward an “executor” role improved efficiency but naturally concentrated organizational power.

His departure exposes this tension: as the organization becomes more efficient and decisive, the personal space for founding team members shrinks. For an ecosystem that must balance “decentralization” and “market efficiency,” internal friction is almost unavoidable.

What kind of person is Aue, who replaces Stańczak?

Very little public info. He described himself on X as responsible for “difficult-to-quantify but critical work” at the Foundation: assisting management decision-making, communicating with team leads, budgeting, strategic planning, setting priorities. His low-profile style contrasts sharply with Stańczak’s entrepreneurial image.

Aue stated in his acceptance speech: “My decision-making is based on certain principled adherence to the attributes of what we are building. The Foundation’s mission is to ensure that truly permissionless infrastructure—centered on the cypherpunk spirit—can be established.”

This sounds more like Miyaguchi’s language: emphasizing principles, spirit, and coordination rather than dominance.

Does this mean the Foundation will shift back from “aggressive execution” to “principled coordination”? We’ll have to wait and see.

Ethereum’s Uncertainty

Stańczak’s departure coincides with a period of major proposals being discussed within Ethereum. According to him, the Foundation is about to release several key documents, including the “Lean Ethereum” plan, future development roadmap, and DeFi coordination mechanisms.

The “Lean Ethereum” proposal has been jokingly called “Ethereum’s weight-loss era”—aiming to simplify the protocol, reduce burdens, and make the mainnet more efficient.

These strategic documents will profoundly influence Ethereum’s development path in the coming years. The change in core leadership at this moment adds uncertainty to the implementation of these proposals.

On a broader scale, Ethereum faces multiple challenges: competition from high-performance chains like Solana, Layer 2 fragmentation issues, new narratives around AI and blockchain integration, and the impact of overall crypto market sentiment on ecosystem funding and attention.

On the day Stańczak announced his departure, ETH briefly fell into the $1,800 range. If it continues to fall below this level, a stark fact emerges: the total return for ETH holders may fall below the interest rate of cash holdings in USD.

To put it more painfully: in January 2018, ETH first hit $1,400. Adjusted for US CPI inflation, that amount would be roughly equivalent to $1,806 in February 2026.

In other words, if an investor bought ETH in 2018 and held it without staking, after eight years, they would not have made a profit—in fact, they might have underperformed just keeping cash in the bank.

For the true believers, the real question may not be “who won the ideological battle,” but “how much longer can this last?”

The only certainty is that this core organization, which controls one of the most important ecosystems in crypto, is still searching for its position in a rapidly changing industry—and that path will undoubtedly be turbulent.