Altcoins News

Story: Ethereum Foundation Slashes 40% of Budget as 9 Senior Leaders Exit Since January

By Bruce Buterin

1 / 15

Nine Departures Since January. Wang's resignation carries weight beyond the title. As co-executive director, she sat at the top…

2 / 15

What a 40% Budget Cut Actually Means. Forty percent is not a trim. It's a structural change.

3 / 15

Restructuring With No Clear Roadmap. What's strange about all of this is the communication gap.

4 / 15

The Ethereum Foundation is cutting deep. A 40% budget reduction paired with a 20% headcount cut — that's the scale of what's happening inside one of crypto's most influential…

5 / 15

Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang has resigned. She's the latest in a string of exits that, since January, now totals nine senior figures walking out the door. Nine.

6 / 15

Wang's resignation carries weight beyond the title. As co-executive director, she sat at the top of the foundation's operational structure.

7 / 15

The foundation hasn't said much about why these people left. No detailed statements, no named successors announced publicly, no clear timeline for when the dust settles.

8 / 15

Crypto nonprofits don't operate like startups. They can't just raise a Series B to cover a rough patch.

9 / 15

Forty percent is not a trim. It's a structural change. For an organization that funds core protocol research, client development, developer tooling, and ecosystem grants, a cut…

10 / 15

The 20% headcount reduction matches that scale. Fewer people, less money, presumably a narrower set of priorities.

11 / 15

See also: Ethereum Validators Could Redirect 10% of Staking Rewards Under New Proposal

12 / 15

And there's a lot of stakeholders. Ethereum sits at the center of a massive developer ecosystem — DeFi protocols, layer-2 networks, NFT infrastructure, enterprise blockchain…

13 / 15

What's strange about all of this is the communication gap. Big organizations going through hard pivots usually say something.

14 / 15

That's left a lot of people guessing. Some in the community probably read it as responsible fiscal discipline — the foundation getting leaner before a prolonged bear market does…

15 / 15

Both readings are possible. Unclear which one's right.

The Currency Analytics

Want the full story?