Two prominent Ethereum Foundation researchers, Carl Beek and Julian Ma, announced their resignations on Monday, deepening a growing talent drain at the organization. Beek, who helped architect the Beacon Chain for Ethereum’s proof-of-stake transition, and Ma, a contributor to censorship resistance and scaling, will both leave by the end of May.
The departures come amid a wave of high-level exits. Former co-executive director Tomasz K. Stańczak stepped down in February, and Josh Stark resigned in March. Other key figures, including Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, and Trent Van Epps, have also left. Alex Stokes, former co-lead of Protocol, recently began a sabbatical, while Péter Szilágyi—creator of the Geth execution client—departed last June.
The Ethereum Foundation is in the midst of a major internal restructuring following community criticism over its execution, scaling, and support. The organization also faced backlash for allegedly asking employees to sign a “loyalty pledge” tied to CROP values (Censorship resistance, Open source, Privacy, and Security), which some found controversial due to perceived connections to the Milady online community.
Beek, who joined seven years ago, noted he and his wife welcomed a one-year-old last month; his final day is May 29. Ma, leaving after about four years, highlighted his work on FOCIL (EIP-7805) for censorship resistance and the Fast Confirmation Rule that reduced bridging time between Layer 2s and mainnet to 13 seconds. The loss of such technical talent raises market uncertainty about Ethereum’s scalability roadmap as it faces aggressive competition from other Layer 1 networks. Attention now turns to Vitalik Buterin to maintain cohesion within the core development team.
