The Ethereum Foundation is hemorrhaging talent and patience in equal measure. At least eight senior members have departed the organization in 2026, with five leaving in May alone, and the community response has moved beyond grumbling into something more concrete: a proposal for an entirely new organization, funded with at least $1 billion, whose job would be making ETH’s price go up.
The exodus and the mandate
Among the departures are Carl Beekhuizen and Tim Beiko, both prominent figures in Ethereum’s technical infrastructure. The leadership churn follows a turbulent stretch that saw Tomasz Stańczak resign, leading to the February appointment of Co-Executive Directors Bastian Aue and Hsiao-Wei Wang.
On March 13, the EF published what it called its “Mandate” document. The framework centers on what the foundation calls CROPS principles: censorship-resistant, open source, private, and secure. But for a growing faction of the Ethereum community, the Mandate effectively codified the EF’s institutional aversion to anything that looks like actively championing ETH as a financial asset. With ETH trading around $2,100 and carrying a market cap of roughly $258 billion while Bitcoin and Solana outperform it, that distinction feels like a liability.
