Can the Ethereum Foundation Finish the Job Before Making Itself Obsolete?

Yesterday, June 18, Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down as co-executive director and board member of the Ethereum Foundation.

Over the past few months, a string of senior researchers and core members have left the EF or shifted roles, among them Tomasz Stańczak, Tim Beiko, Barnabé Monnot, Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, Carl Beek, and Julian Ma.

The Ethereum Foundation was never built to accumulate profit or grow the way an ordinary company does. For years its guiding philosophy has been "subtraction": gradually reducing its own authority so that, over time, Ethereum can survive without the foundation at all. As a nonprofit, the EF has limited funds. Today it holds only about 0.16% of the total ETH supply.

Seen this way, the EF looks closer to an organization with a finite lifespan. Its finances point the same direction. In 2025 it announced a plan to cut its annual operating budget from 15% of the treasury today to 5% over the next five years. In keeping with subtraction, the EF intends to shrink both its role and its spending.

That backdrop raises three questions.

1. Can the EF push the current roadmap far enough before its remaining influence, funding, and human capital run down?

The EF has held onto its key people less through high pay than through the standing, trust, and influence that come with doing research at the frontier of the field. But the rise of AI has dimmed some of that appeal. Blockchain broadly, and Ethereum specifically, no longer hold the singular pull they once did, and keeping top researchers in place may only get harder.

The real question is whether the EF can finish enough of the work to justify stepping aside before the moment to step aside actually arrives. That means Ethereum's risk is not only a matter of technical difficulty. It also rests on organizational stamina and talent retention, on the ability to carry the roadmap to completion while deliberately spending less. In the worst case, a core task like the quantum transition stalls half-finished while the EF that was supposed to drive it has already shrunk.

2. If the current roadmap is completed, can Ethereum become a system that no longer needs major change?

The Strawmap is a blueprint that Justin Drake put together in January 2026 from a workshop discussion. If it is delivered, Ethereum's base layer moves much closer to a state that can be locked in.

The problem is that even an ossified base layer sits in a world that keeps moving. Technical pressures that were invisible when the roadmap was drawn, or shifts in the regulatory environment, can still appear. Ethereum is a technology before it is a philosophy, and technology eventually reaches a point where it has to change again. When that happens, the kind of strong coordinator the EF is today may be needed once more.

3. Will a new group emerge to replace the EF?

The vacuum the EF leaves as it steps back from the center is not neutral. Depending on who fills that space, and with what incentives, Ethereum's identity could shift. Dankrad Feist, a former EF researcher, has already proposed a new organization "to save Ethereum," with its mandate tied directly to the ETH price. Still, I think that if a group does emerge to replace or complement the EF, the best outcome is one that carries forward the direction the EF has held to.

Over the long run, Ethereum may come to look a little more like Bitcoin. Not a network led firmly by a single foundation, but a protocol that moves slowly and conservatively on top of a broader social consensus. If that transition fails, it would signal that Ethereum is losing its ability to execute at the very moment that matters most. The EF and the Ethereum community will have to answer these three questions, and their answers will weigh heavily on how ETH investors judge the asset's value.