The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has finalized a months-long internal reorganization, resulting in a 20% reduction of its workforce—54 employees laid off—as part of a broader plan to streamline operations and sharpen strategic focus. The foundation announced the completion of the restructuring in an official blog post on Tuesday, revealing a new five-cluster operational structure and a clear commitment to fiscal responsibility under its Mandate and Treasury Management Policy.
The new structure organizes the EF into five domain-focused clusters: Protocol, Access, User, Community, and Institutional, each with its own accountability framework and supported by dedicated operations and management teams. The Protocol cluster will harden and scale the Ethereum base layer against capture and censorship, while the Access cluster ensures users can interact with the chain without unverifiable intermediaries. The User, Community, and Institutional clusters will respectively connect decision-making to real-world needs, manage the foundation's public image, and handle engagement with financial institutions, governments, and enterprises.
Departing staff receive a comprehensive severance package: one month’s salary for each year of service (or the locally mandated amount, whichever is higher), a retirement payment, and access to a support fund covering career coaching and transition costs. The EF noted that many affected employees are expected to continue contributing to the Ethereum ecosystem from outside the organization.
This restructuring is the formal conclusion of an 18-month transformation that reshaped the EF's leadership. It follows a wave of executive departures, including former co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stanczak, and the launch of Ethlabs—a nonprofit backed by Joe Lubin, Bitmine, and SharpLink—focused on Ethereum's institutional growth. The foundation said it will share further operational details in the coming weeks.
