CoinDesk
Ethereum marked 11 years on July 30 with one of the most consequential years in its history: the Ethereum Foundation underwent sweeping leadership and structural reform, while Wall Street adoption accelerated on a parallel track. Nine senior members departed over the past seven months, including co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, and the foundation cut its workforce by roughly 20%. In March it published its first formal mandate built around CROPS, a framework pinning Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy and Security as non-negotiable principles, alongside a stated goal of reducing the foundation's own influence over the network.
Why it matters
The reorganization is the most significant since Ethereum's launch and reflects mounting community pressure over execution pace and transparency. Spinouts including EthLabs, Ethereum Systems and Ethereum Institutional are taking on responsibilities once concentrated under the foundation, a deliberate move to distribute stewardship rather than concentrate it. The shift applies the same decentralization principle Ethereum has championed at the protocol level to the institutions surrounding it, an unusual self-imposed constraint for a network's leading body.
Market impact
The institutional read is equally significant. BlackRock has continued expanding across Ethereum DeFi and staked ETH ETFs, while JPMorgan deepened its blockchain settlement work, both treating Ethereum as base-layer infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets. Spot U.S. Ethereum ETFs have accumulated more than $11.23 billion in cumulative net inflows since their 2024 launch, with institutions increasingly issuing products on the network rather than just holding ETH. The Fusaka upgrade, anchored by PeerDAS for layer-2 data availability, kept the technical roadmap moving through the internal turbulence, signaling that protocol development remains resilient even as the foundation itself restructures. Ethereum's second decade opens with a dual challenge: proving the institutions around the network can evolve without eroding the decentralized principles that made it viable in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
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What is the CROPS mandate the Ethereum Foundation adopted?
CROPS stands for Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy and Security. The Foundation published it in March as its first formal mandate, framing those four principles as non-negotiable guides for technical and organizational decisions, alongside a stated goal of reducing its own influence over Ethereum.
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Who are the senior leaders that left the Ethereum Foundation?
Co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak both resigned over the past seven months, ending a dual-leadership experiment introduced in an earlier restructuring. A total of nine senior members departed in that window, alongside a roughly 20% workforce reduction through layoffs.
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How much have spot US Ethereum ETFs pulled in since launch?
Spot U.S. Ethereum ETFs have accumulated more than $11.23 billion in cumulative net inflows since their 2024 launch, reflecting sustained institutional demand for ETH exposure.
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What is the Fusaka upgrade and what does PeerDAS do?
Fusaka is Ethereum's latest network upgrade, activated during the Foundation's internal restructuring. At its core is PeerDAS, a data availability advance designed to make layer-2 rollups more efficient, marking another step in Ethereum's long-term scaling roadmap.
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Why is Ethereum's institutional adoption considered a second-decade turning point?
BlackRock has expanded across Ethereum DeFi and staked ETH ETFs, while JPMorgan has deepened blockchain-based settlement. Together with growing tokenized real-world assets and ETF inflows, institutions are now issuing financial products directly on Ethereum rather than just holding the asset, repositioning the network…
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