Author: bootly, BitpushNews

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is once again at a crossroads in personnel turmoil.

Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak announced that he will step down at the end of this month. This comes just 11 months after he and Hsiao-Wei Wang took over from long-time leader Aya Miyaguchi and formed a new leadership core last March.

He will be succeeded by Bastian Aue. There is very little public information about him; his X account was registered only eight months ago and has almost no speaking record. He will continue to work with Hsiao-Wei Wang to lead this organization that controls the core resources and direction of the Ethereum ecosystem.

This seemingly sudden personnel change is, in fact, an inevitable result of the internal contradictions of the Ethereum Foundation, external pressures, and strategic transformation intertwining.

A Critical Mission: A Year of Turmoil

To understand Stańczak's departure, one must first return to the context of his appointment.

At the beginning of 2025, the Ethereum community was in a state of anxiety. At that time, following the U.S. elections, the overall cryptocurrency market was on the rise, Bitcoin hit new highs repeatedly, and competitor chains such as Solana were gaining momentum, while Ethereum's price performance was relatively weak, and the Ethereum Foundation itself became the target of criticism.

The criticism was pointed directly at then-executive director Aya Miyaguchi. The developer community complained that the foundation was seriously disconnected from frontline builders, that there were conflicts of interest in strategic direction, and that there was insufficient promotion of Ethereum. Some questioned the foundation's overly "laid-back" attitude, suggesting that its self-portrayal as "coordinator" rather than "leader" was causing Ethereum to lose its first-mover advantage.

As "the central bank" of Ethereum, the Foundation was expected to take decisive action rather than to be passive.

Amid this storm of public opinion, Miyaguchi moved to a behind-the-scenes role on the board. Stańczak and Wang were urgently appointed to take center stage.

Stańczak was not an outsider. He is the founder of Nethermind, one of the key execution clients in the Ethereum ecosystem, playing a crucial role in infrastructure construction. He understands technology, has entrepreneurial experience, and has a firsthand understanding of community pain points.

In his own words, the directive he received upon taking office was very clear: "The community is calling out—you are too chaotic, you need to be a bit more centralized, accelerate a bit, to tackle this critical period."

What did they accomplish in this year?

The combination of Stańczak and Wang did indeed bring visible changes.

First was organizational efficiency. The foundation laid off 19 employees, streamlined its structure, and attempted to shed the label of bureaucratization. The strategic focus returned from Layer 2 to Layer 1 itself, with a clear statement prioritizing the expansion of the Ethereum mainnet rather than permitting L2s to act independently. The pace of upgrades accelerated significantly, and the advancement of EIPs became more decisive than ever.

Second was a shift in posture. The foundation began to release a series of videos on social media, actively explaining Ethereum's technological roadmap and development direction to the public. This "go out" communication approach contrasted with its previously relatively closed and mysterious image.

In terms of strategic layout, Stańczak pushed for exploration in several new directions: privacy protection, responses to quantum computing threats, and the integration of artificial intelligence with Ethereum. Especially in the AI direction, he clearly stated that he saw trends of "agent systems" and "AI-assisted discovery" reshaping the world.

On the financial front, the foundation began discussing more transparent budget management and fund distribution strategies in an attempt to respond to external doubts about the efficiency of its treasury usage.

Vitalik Buterin's evaluation of Stańczak was: "He has greatly improved the efficiency of several departments in the foundation, making the organization more agile in its responses to the outside world."

The Implications of the Resignation Statement

Why leave after less than a year?

Stańczak's resignation statement was quite candid and somewhat thought-provoking. He provided several key points:

Firstly, he believes that the Ethereum Foundation and the entire ecosystem "are in a healthy state." It is time to pass the baton.

Secondly, he wants to return to being a "hands-on product builder," focusing on the combination of AI and Ethereum. He mentioned that his current mindset is similar to when he founded Nethermind in 2017.

Thirdly, and most intriguingly, he stated, "The foundation's leadership is increasingly confident in making decisions and controlling more affairs. Over time, my ability to execute independently in the foundation has weakened. If I continue to stay, in 2026 I would be more 'waiting to pass the baton'."

This statement reveals two layers of meaning: First, the new leadership team has developed self-motivation and no longer needs him to intervene in everything; second, his actual power may be shrinking. For someone used to being hands-on and with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, this feeling is evidently not fitting for him anymore.

He also mentioned, "I know that many of the current ideas about agent-based AI may not be mature, or even useless, but it is precisely this game-like experimentation that defined the innovative spirit of early Ethereum."

This line carries a subtle criticism of the current situation: As organizations become more "mature," and decision-making becomes more "sober," will that savage experimental spirit be lost?

Stańczak's departure is ostensibly a personal choice, but it is rooted in the long-term dilemmas faced by the Ethereum Foundation.

From its inception, this organization has been in an awkward position. Theoretically, Ethereum is decentralized, and the foundation should not become a power center giving orders. However, in reality, it controls a large amount of funds, core developer resources, and ecological coordination authority, objectively undertaking a dual role of "central bank" and "development committee."

This identity paradox has led the foundation to be in a dilemma for a long time: if it does too much, it is accused of being centralized; if it does too little, it is criticized for inaction. Miyaguchi's era leaned towards a "coordinator" role and was criticized for being weak; Stańczak attempted to shift towards an "executor" role, which did improve efficiency, but naturally concentrated power more within the organization.

Stańczak's resignation statement precisely exposed this tension: as the organization became more efficient and decision-making more decisive, the personal space for members of the founding team was compressed. For an ecosystem that needs to balance the "spirit of decentralization" and "market competition efficiency," this internal friction is nearly unavoidable.

What kind of person will Bastian Aue, who succeeds Stańczak, be?

There is very little publicly available information. His own description on X states that he was previously responsible for "hard-to-quantify but critically important work" at the foundation: assisting managerial decisions, communicating with team leaders, budget considerations, strategic sorting, and priority setting. This low-profile style contrasts sharply with Stańczak's evident entrepreneurial spirit.

Aue stated during his transition, "My basis for making decisions is a principled adherence to certain attributes of what we are building. The mission of the foundation is to ensure that permissionless infrastructure—the core being the cypherpunk spirit—can be established."

This statement sounds more like the linguistic style from the Miyaguchi era: emphasizing principles, emphasizing spirit, emphasizing coordination rather than dominance.

Does this mean that the foundation will rebalance its direction from "radical execution" back to "principled coordination"? This remains to be seen.

The Confusion of Ethereum

Stańczak's departure comes at a pivotal moment as Ethereum discusses a series of significant proposals. According to him, the foundation is about to release several key documents, including the concrete plan for "Lean Ethereum," future development roadmap, and DeFi coordination mechanisms.

Among them, the "Lean Ethereum" proposal has been jokingly referred to by some community members as "the weight loss era of Ethereum"—aiming to simplify the protocol, reduce burdens, and allow the mainnet to operate more efficiently.

These directional documents will profoundly affect the evolutionary path of Ethereum in the coming years. Replacing the core executive leader at this moment undoubtedly adds uncertainty to the implementation of these proposals.

The broader context is that Ethereum is facing challenges from multiple levels: competition from high-performance chains like Solana, fragmentation issues in Layer 2, a new narrative window for the integration of AI and blockchain, and the impact of overall market sentiment on ecosystem financing and attention.

On the very day Stańczak announced his departure, ETH fell into the $1800 range. If it continues to fall below this threshold, an awkward fact will emerge: the comprehensive return of holding ETH may fall below the cash interest rates in USD.

To put it more painfully: in January 2018, ETH first reached $1400. That $1400 adjusted for U.S. CPI inflation compounded would be equivalent to about $1806 by February 2026.

In other words, if an investor bought ETH in 2018 and held it bare until now, never participating in staking, after eight years, they not only did not make any money but even performed worse than if they had just put their cash in the bank to earn interest.

For the "E Guardians" who have believed all along, the real inquiry may not be "who won the route debate," but: How much longer can it hold out?

The only thing that can be certain is that this core organization controlling one of the most important ecosystems in the crypto world is still searching for its position in a rapidly changing industry, and this road is destined not to be calm.

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