Eight senior Ethereum Foundation researchers have quit in 2026. Five of them left in May. Carl Beek announced his exit on Monday after seven years. Julian Ma resigned the same day. They join Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, Trent Van Epps, Alex Stokes, and former co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak on the growing roster of departures.
The Foundation's Protocol Cluster, the team responsible for core Ethereum research, has now lost contributors across every layer it covers. That looks like a crisis. Vitalik Buterin says it is not.
"The EF Is Not the Center of Ethereum"
Buterin published a lengthy post on X on Sunday, framing the departures as evidence that a deliberate restructuring is working, not failing. His argument: the Foundation was never supposed to be the engine room. It was supposed to be one node among many.
"EF is not a 'center of Ethereum,' rather EF is 'one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes,'" Buterin wrote. "We have always said that the EF should be the latter, but many in the Ethereum ecosystem, and even within the EF, wanted us to be the former."
The implication is blunt: some of the people who left wanted the Foundation to be bigger and more central. Buterin wants the opposite.
Less ETH Sold. Fewer People Paid. Longer Runway.
The operational pivot is real. Buterin confirmed the Foundation will sell less ETH going forward, prioritizing "longevity over breadth." The treasury report from earlier this year showed 99.1% of EF reserves remain in ETH. The Foundation holds approximately 0.16% of total ETH supply. The Foundation reached its 70,000 ETH staking target earlier this year, which generates yield without requiring sales.
In practice, a smaller Foundation means fewer grants, fewer hires, and fewer events funded directly by the EF. Buterin expects outside groups to absorb the work the Foundation drops. Which groups, doing what, with whose money? Those details were not in the post.
The "Mediocrity" Warning
Buterin took a direct shot at the speed-first narrative that has dominated the Ethereum vs. Solana debate. "Being as fast and as scalable as possible, and only a small epsilon more decentralized than the others, is a route to mediocrity, and if we try it we will lose," he wrote.
He drew a clear line: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Zcash sit in one category where decentralization is non-negotiable. Solana, BNB Chain, and Hyperledger sit in another where it is acceptable to rely on social consensus and hard forks to recover from validator failures. Ethereum, in Buterin's framing, cannot cross that line without destroying what makes it valuable. The question is whether the fragmented L2 economy that now holds $40 billion agrees with that framing.
90% of His Net Worth Is Still ETH
Buterin disclosed that nearly 90% of his personal net worth remains in ETH. The rest goes to open-source biotech, software, and hardware initiatives. That is a stronger commitment than most founders make, and it contradicts the narrative that Vitalik's occasional token sales signal fading conviction. Selling memecoins he never asked for is different from reducing core ETH exposure. He is doing the former, not the latter.
Is the Protocol Actually at Risk?
No. At least not from headcount loss. Fusaka shipped in December 2025 without disruption. Glamsterdam, the next hard fork, is on track for the first half of 2026. The post-quantum defense unit launched in January is still operational. Client teams like Prysm, Lighthouse, Geth, and Nethermind run independently of EF payroll.
The real risk is narrative, not technical. ETH is down 57% from its all-time high. Competing L1s are gaining developer share. The Foundation's brain drain makes headlines that reinforce the "Ethereum is dying" story, even if the protocol itself is shipping upgrades on schedule. Buterin's post is an attempt to separate those two things. Whether the market buys the distinction is a different question.
