Ethereum Foundation Cuts 20% of Workforce and Reduces Budget by 40% in Major Restructuring

Jun 23, 2026

The Ethereum Foundation is cutting 54 employees (20% of staff) and slashing its budget by 40% in a major restructuring. Co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the move is part of a transition to a leaner, endowment-based model, aiming to reduce annual spending from 15% to 5% of its treasury by 2030. The overhaul, which follows numerous senior leadership departures, reorganizes work into five clusters and winds down its PSE research unit.

Workforce reduction

▪The Ethereum Foundation laid off 54 employees, representing approximately 20% of its workforce.
▪The staff reduction concludes a months-long reorganization process tied to the Foundation's new "Mandate" and "Treasury Management Policy."
▪Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledged the loss, stating he would not pretend "that nothing of great value was lost."
▪The layoffs follow the departure of at least nine senior figures since January, including co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak.

Endowment transition strategy

▪The Ethereum Foundation is reducing its annual budget by approximately 40% as part of the restructuring.
▪Vitalik Buterin stated he favors a long-term "soft lean-and-done" approach for Ethereum, learning from Bitcoin's conservative development model.
▪The Foundation is transitioning to a long-term, endowment-based model, aiming to cut annual spending from ~15% of its treasury to ~5% by 2030.
▪The price of Ethereum (ETH) fell almost 7% on the news of the reorganization.

Client development model changes

▪The EF plans to shift its multi-client model, expecting teams to focus on specialized needs rather than redundancy, potentially using AI-assisted formal verification for security.
▪The Foundation's remaining work will be organized into five new clusters: protocol, access, user, community, and institutional layers.
▪The protocol cluster will focus on making Ethereum more resistant to censorship and capture, and on long-term research like post-quantum security.

Protocol technical roadmap

▪Vitalik Buterin described the current technical roadmap as Ethereum's "third major iteration," aiming to improve nearly every major component of the protocol.
▪The Foundation's new direction will be anchored by the CROPS framework: censorship resistance, capture resistance, openness, privacy, and security.

Institutional adoption focus

▪A new independent nonprofit research lab, Ethlabs, was launched by five former Ethereum Foundation researchers.
▪Ethlabs is backed by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and firms like BitMine Immersion Technologies and Sharplink.
▪The EF's institutional work will narrow to focus on projects that demonstrate how institutions can use Ethereum without compromising its core principles.

Privacy Scaling Explorations shutdown

▪Devcon, the Ethereum Foundation's flagship developer conference, is expected to become smaller, more austere, and less expensive to operate.
▪The Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) unit, an incubator for ZK-proofs and scaling research, will be wound down as a standalone group.