Ethereum Foundation sacks 20% of workforce amid strategic restructuring
The Ethereum Foundation laid off 54 employees, about 20% of its staff, as part of a major restructuring. It will reorganize into five clusters focused on protocol, access, user, community, and institutional work, with the goal of concentrating resources on long-term priorities such as scaling, privacy, security, and censorship resistance. Management and operations will remain separate. Vitalik Buterin said the foundation is cutting its budget by about 40% as it moves toward an endowment-style model, aiming to reduce annual spending from roughly 15% of remaining funds to about 5% after 2030. He said more development work will move outside the EF as Ethereum becomes more distributed. The shakeup comes amid broader leadership and staffing changes, treasury adjustments, and concerns about a funding crunch in Ethereum’s core development ecosystem.
