Another senior leader has left the Ethereum Foundation, deepening questions about the organization’s future direction and capacity to steward the protocol.
What happened
- Hsiao-Wei Wang, a co-director at the Ethereum Foundation, announced via social media that she is stepping down effective immediately. Wang said the decision came after a recent sabbatical and credited interim co-director Bastian Aue for managing the transition “with care and thoughtfulness.”
- Wang’s departure follows the February exit of her fellow co-director Tomasz Stańczak. After Stańczak left, Aue was named interim co-director alongside Wang.
Context and leadership shake-up
- Wang’s exit comes about a month after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the Foundation would transition to a “smaller ship,” refocusing resources on a narrower set of priorities: censorship resistance, privacy, and security.
- The Foundation has already seen a string of notable exits in recent months, including top researcher Dankrad Feist, Stańczak, and at least two long-tenured staffers. Those departures have prompted public skepticism about whether the Foundation can continue to push the Ethereum ecosystem forward.
Calls for a new structure
- Concerns intensified when Feist suggested the community needs an entirely new organization with at least $1 billion in ETH funding to “save Ethereum.” On X, Feist argued the community needs an entity “economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it,” led by “a leader who is competent and wants to fight.”
Organizational changes and treasury moves
- Buterin has said the Foundation has been making “large changes” dating back to early 2025 to improve ties with ecosystem builders and active participants. Those reform efforts continued into 2026 as Ethereum reassesses its relationship with layer-2 networks.
- The Foundation has also moved to be more transparent about its finances. It released a clearer treasury policy outlining when it would sell ETH and said it will aim to “earn acceptable returns on treasury assets.” Earlier this year, the Foundation began staking some of its holdings, with an eventual target of staking roughly 70,000 ETH — about $119 million at current prices.
Market reaction
- ETH was trading around $1,708 and was down about 1.4% in the last 24 hours. That price is roughly 66% below the token’s all-time high of $4,946 reached in August 2025.
What’s next
- The departures and strategic tightening leave open questions about how the Foundation will execute its narrowed mandate and whether new governance or funding models will emerge from the community. A representative for the Ethereum Foundation did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
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