The Ethereum Foundation has officially dissolved its Protocol Support team, a group that spent five years coordinating Ethereum’s major network upgrades, developer meetings, and training programs. The closure was announced on July 9 via the team’s X account, with former members confirming the restructuring that follows a wider foundation-wide downsizing.
The Protocol Support team was formed in 2021 to bridge communication between client teams, researchers, EIP authors, and infrastructure providers. It organized All Core Developers meetings, managed the Forkcast upgrade tracker, supported the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) process, and ran the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship that brought dozens of new developers into core protocol work.
During its tenure, the team guided Ethereum through historic milestones including the Berlin, London, and Arrow Glacier upgrades, the Rayonism and Kintsugi testnets ahead of The Merge, and later upgrades Shapella, Dencun, and Pectra. Mario Havel, a core member who survived the cuts, described the disbanding as the “bitter end” of a team that supported Ethereum’s core development through multiple leadership changes.
This latest closure follows the Ethereum Foundation’s June 23 announcement of a 20% workforce reduction, eliminating 54 roles as part of a reorganization into five layers: protocol, access, user, community, and institutional. The foundation said the Protocol Layer would absorb parts of Protocol Support’s duties, but it has not detailed every reassignment, leaving some programs—like the EPF fellowship—in uncertain status. Former team lead William Morriss also confirmed his role was eliminated.
The move marks a shift toward a less centralized coordination model, with responsibilities distributed across the foundation’s new structure. While core protocol development remains ongoing—Ethereum developers are currently working on the Glamsterdam upgrade—the immediate impact on upgrade coordination and community programs remains to be seen.
