Tomasz Stańczak, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), announced he will step down from his leadership role at the end of February 2026. His departure marks a notable shift in the organization's executive team after a one-year term that overlapped with a period of significant internal debate and restructuring.
Stańczak, who has co-led the foundation alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang since early 2025, stated in a blog post that he believes the foundation and the broader Ethereum ecosystem are "in a healthy state" as he prepares to hand over the reins. Bastian Aue has been named interim co-executive director and will take the role alongside Wang.
Stańczak's tenure began at a turbulent time for the EF. He was brought aboard in March 2025 following the transition of long-time executive director Aya Miyaguchi into a new leadership position. His appointment came amid mounting community criticism that the foundation wasn't doing enough to aggressively push the Ethereum ecosystem forward. Detractors pointed to a perceived disconnect between the EF and developers, including conflicts of interest, clashes over strategic direction, and frustrations about ETH's price performance.
His mandate focused on operational reform, establishing a clearer treasury structure, and strengthening the foundation's institutional positioning as Ethereum confronted competitive pressure from faster-moving networks. The foundation had also faced accusations of opaque ETH sales used to fund operations, with critics questioning treasury transparency and centralized influence within a small decision-making circle.
Stańczak indicated his departure appears preplanned, stating that the core restructuring objectives set in early 2025—including faster decision cycles, clearer roadmaps, updated compensation policies, and enhanced institutional engagement—are either completed or structurally embedded. He suggested that remaining through 2026 would amount to stewardship rather than execution.
The co-director signaled his intention to remain involved in the ecosystem, pivoting back to hands-on technical work. After leaving his CEO role at Nethermind to join the foundation, he now plans to focus on protocol development, AI-integrated governance, and agentic systems interacting with Ethereum. "I plan to continue working directly with founders in frontier tech and Ethereum. I want to see and support the realization of the vision that I have talked about over the last years. It is one of the most exciting times to be a builder on Ethereum," Stańczak wrote.
As Stańczak steps down, the foundation is preparing a merged LEAN Ethereum and core development roadmap for 2026, alongside a defined post-quantum security track and expanded rollup coordination. In his note, he described Ethereum as a coordination layer for finance, tokenized assets, and automated AI agents, citing rising stablecoin and real-world asset activity.
