CoinDesk
The Ethereum Foundation is back at the center of crypto's longest-running internal fight. Eight prominent contributors have departed the Switzerland-based nonprofit since January 2026, and critics inside the ecosystem are using the exit wave to argue the institution has become insular, slow-moving and out of step with a blockchain that now secures trillions of dollars in assets across DeFi, stablecoins, tokenized assets and a sprawling layer-2 landscape.
Longtime Ethereum contributor Zak Cole sharpened the critique on Laura Shin's Unchained podcast: "The EF is completely out of touch. They're funding hippos in Asia and doing a bunch of stuff nobody in the world gives a s*** about other than Vitalik and his little cabal." Vitalik Buterin pushed back in a lengthy post last week, reframing the foundation as "one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes" rather than Ethereum's executive authority, and pointed to an internally defined "CROPS" mandate — censorship resistance, openness, privacy, security — as the scope the EF is now choosing to defend.
Why it matters
The foundation has occupied a deliberately ambiguous role since its 2014 founding: original organizer, funder of client teams, convener of network upgrades, and informal steward of a network that launched in 2015 with no other institutional scaffolding. As that scaffolding thickened over a decade — venture-backed L2s, multi-billion-dollar DeFi protocols, corporate treasury teams — the EF's identity got harder to pin down. Hudson Jameson, a former EF coordinator now at Certik, framed the cycle as an identity problem rather than a competence problem: "The biggest reason for there to be hoopla every time there is a communication crisis from the Ethereum Foundation is because every cycle we get new people and old people leave."
Chris Buolos, president of Dromos Labs (the developer firm behind Base-based DEX Aerodrome), argued the substantive critique is real even if the existential framing is overblown. "The EF has tried to be many things to many constituencies at once, which is not only difficult to execute on but takes focus away from perhaps more product-oriented players," he said, while adding that a "smaller org concentrated on the research only it can credibly do, such as post-quantum work, privacy, neutrality and other long-horizon questions that don't have a commercial sponsor, is probably a healthier shape than the sprawl of the last few years."
Market impact
The talent loss is the part competitors are reading most closely.
Frequently asked questions
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Why is the Ethereum Foundation back in the spotlight in 2026?
A wave of high-profile departures — eight contributors since January 2026 — has reignited criticism that the foundation is out of touch, with longtime contributor Zak Cole's Unchained podcast comments becoming a flashpoint and Vitalik Buterin pushing back in a lengthy post reframing the EF's role.
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What is the Ethereum Foundation's official response to the criticism?
Vitalik Buterin argued last week that the EF is "one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes" rather than Ethereum's executive authority, and pointed to an internal "CROPS" mandate — censorship resistance, openness, privacy, security — as the scope the foundation is now choosing to defend.
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How many people have left the Ethereum Foundation recently?
Eight prominent contributors have departed the foundation since January 2026, according to CoinDesk, fueling speculation that the institution is entering a period of decline at a moment when Ethereum itself carries trillions of dollars in assets across its ecosystem.
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What is the "CROPS" framework Vitalik referenced?
Buterin described CROPS — censorship resistance, openness, privacy and security — as Ethereum's core values, and framed the EF's narrowing scope as a deliberate choice to focus remaining resources on long-horizon work that lacks a commercial sponsor, such as post-quantum research and neutrality work.
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Could the EF's contraction affect Ethereum's price or ecosystem?
Critics argue a smaller, less coordinated EF could slow Ethereum's application layer at a time when rivals like Solana, Sui and Base-native stacks are aggressively competing for developers and institutional capital. Buterin's response is an attempt to pre-empt that read by reframing retreat as focus on long-horizon…
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