Ethereum Foundation Leadership Reshuffle: The Strategic Game Between Idealism and Market Reality

In March 2025, the Ethereum Foundation announced significant leadership changes: Executive Director Aya Miyagotchi transitioned to Chair, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were appointed as the new Co-Executive Directors, and former researcher Danny Ryan joined Etherealize.

In the face of fierce competition, Ethereum is at a moment of transformation. This change is not just about personnel adjustments, but rather a strategic game concerning the future direction of Ethereum. For a long time, Aya has been driving the construction of an "infinite garden" for Ethereum with an idealistic vision. However, as market competition intensifies and issues such as high Gas fees and network congestion become apparent, the community has begun to question its conservative resource allocation and cultural promotion strategies. There have even been extreme criticisms directed at Aya, prompting Vitalik Buterin to call for calm.

In this context, the Ethereum Foundation is attempting to respond to external dissatisfaction by adjusting its leadership and striving to find a new balance between idealism and market reality. This article will explore the effectiveness of the strategic transformation achieved so far from three dimensions: organizational structure changes, Etherealize positioning, and recent adjustments and future outlook.

Dual Leadership: New Pattern of Rights and Responsibilities

Aya's term

Since 2018, Aya Miyaguchi has served as the Executive Director. Aya's leadership coincided with the significant transition of Ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake.

At the strategic level, Aya advocates and implements the guiding principle of "subtraction philosophy." This principle requires the foundation to avoid expanding into a highly centralized power entity, distributing more opportunities and responsibilities throughout the community. At the same time, it adheres to the core values of openness, trustworthiness, neutrality, and decentralization, avoiding the pursuit of profit or adopting aggressive marketing strategies.

In terms of internal structural adjustments, Aya has led the establishment of several new teams and projects. For example, the EF Fellowship program launched in 2022 supports builders in emerging communities, contributing to the vision of "the next billion." Furthermore, new forms of conferences such as Devconnect, launched in 2021, also demonstrate new attempts in conference organization and community building.

Architecture and Recent Changes

The Ethereum Foundation, as a non-profit organization, does not have a pyramid-like hierarchical structure, but has evolved into a "team community". The foundation supports numerous semi-autonomous teams that operate independently in their respective areas of expertise while organically collaborating under shared values.

The organizational structure can be divided into four main functional areas: Protocol Research and Development (PR&D), Ecosystem Development (EcoDev), Operational Support (Ops), and Privacy and Scalability Exploration (PSE). Each area has its own responsibilities while also collaborating with external communities, research institutions, and development teams under the coordination of the "Protocol Guild" and "Protocol Support" teams.

The foundation plays a bridging role in coordinating cross-team collaboration, such as organizing client interoperability workshops, promoting network upgrades, and hosting global events like Devcon. At the same time, management always avoids micromanaging each project and instead encourages teams to work in an atmosphere of "self-driven and responsible."

The research team responsible for the core development of the protocol also underwent significant changes from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025. The Ethereum Foundation's research department was reorganized in early 2025 from a single research team into five specialized groups: the Applied Research Group (ARG), the Consensus R&D Group, the Cryptography Group, the Protocol Security Group, and the Robust Incentives Group (RIG). This split was due to the foundation's rapid expansion in the fields of cryptography and security, necessitating more specialized teams to focus on different research directions, thereby enhancing research and development efficiency and transparency. At the same time, long-term researchers Alex Stokes and Barnabé Monnot were appointed as co-leads of research, jointly steering the research direction.

The PSE team, as a key group focused on research in zero-knowledge proofs and privacy technology, originated from the internal AppliedZKP team and has now become an independent interdisciplinary "team community" model, operating parallel to other semi-autonomous teams within the foundation. Through various forms such as workshops, summer camps, and testnets, it aids the Ethereum network in evolving towards a direction of "equal emphasis on privacy and scalability." The establishment of PSE stems from the urgent need for practical applications of privacy and scalability technologies. In the past, research on zero-knowledge proofs and MPC often remained at the academic level, and PSE was born to drive technological maturity in an "application-driven" manner, bridging the gap between research and engineering. In 2024, the team underwent significant restructuring. A large number of original members left later that year, and the team almost achieved a "restart."

After the latest personnel changes, the management structure is as follows: Aya has been appointed as the Chairperson, responsible for promoting strategic cooperation and maintaining relationships, while reducing direct involvement in specific affairs; in the management team, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz serve as Co-Executive Directors, working together in a parallel and collaborative manner to handle management tasks; in the research field, Barnabé Monnot and Alex Stokes will jointly serve as Co-Research Heads, while Tju Liang Chua continues to serve as the Chief Legal Advisor, and Bastian and Josh Stark will continue to take on management and operational responsibilities.

Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz: The Dual Engine of Technology and Management

In this reform, a dual leadership structure was introduced, appointing two executive directors with deep technical backgrounds and rich practical experience.

Hsiao-Wei Wang

Since joining in 2017, Wang Xiaowei has served as a core researcher. She graduated from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan with a major in Network Engineering, possessing a solid technical foundation. She has deeply engaged in shard and beacon chain-related technologies, playing a key role in The Merge in 2022. Now, as the executive director, Wang Xiaowei is not only responsible for leading the R&D direction but also bears the important task of promoting community building. Her appointment is seen as a critical turning point for Ethereum to regain technological innovation and grassroots spirit.

Tomasz Stańczak

Tomasz is well known for his leadership at Nethermind. After more than seven years of effort, Nethermind currently holds a market share of about 35% in the Execution client market, second only to Geth. At the same time, Nethermind continues to expand its business scope, launching various products and actively engaging in collaborations and research to contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem. Not only has Tomasz led Nethermind to achieve outstanding results in client development, but he is also actively exploring cutting-edge topics such as MEV and PBS. The rich experience Tomasz has accumulated at Nethermind has injected management expertise and strategic vision.

The new architecture aims to achieve the following goals:

• Decentralized Decision-Making Responsibility: The two executive directors each possess independent decision-making authority, which not only reduces the risk of single points of failure but also facilitates stakeholders in choosing their partners based on their preferences. For example, institutions or developers located in Europe can meet and communicate directly with Tomasz according to his visit schedule from April to July. At the same time, this allows stakeholders to flexibly connect with matters in different regions and take charge of the pace of cooperation.
• Complementary advantages of technology and management: Wang Xiaowei's in-depth research on Ethereum core innovations (such as the Beacon Chain, sharding technology, and ETH 2.0) forms a strong complement to Tomasz's mature experience in organizational expansion and operational management.

Aya appointed as chairman, Vitalik returns to research

Meanwhile, former Executive Director Aya Miyagotchi has transitioned to the role of Chairperson, focusing more on external strategic partnerships and relationship management. After serving as Executive Director for seven years, Aya is now concentrating on strategic guidance and external communications, while daily operational management is fully overseen by Wang Xiaowei and Tomasz Stańczak.

According to Tomasz, one of the goals after the leadership change is to have Vitalik more engaged in research and exploration rather than day-to-day coordination or crisis management. Vitalik's recent articles on RISC-V and zkVMs have opened up promising research directions, and his discussions on privacy have also helped the community realign with core values. At the same time, while Vitalik's proposals carry significant weight, they are more intended to spark discussions and advance difficult research areas; community reviews may significantly alter or even reject these proposals.

Community Response

After the announcement of the new appointments, the Ethereum community congratulated and welcomed Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz.

Georgios Konstantopoulos, the Chief Technology Officer of Paradigm, bluntly stated that Tomasz has reached "new heights": he is wise and experienced, adept at grasping the nuances of technology, and possesses the ability to build and lead efficient large teams. There is a general consensus in the community that Hsiao-Wei's in-depth understanding of the protocol will ensure that the foundation's technical direction is always in the hands of professionals. Sassal highly praised this appointment of co-executive directors and regarded this leadership adjustment as a "significant change" that will drive the organization into the next phase. Many builders are optimistically anticipating that the partnership of a leader from the research field and a leader from the engineering and client team will help achieve a good balance at the governance level.

Some community members were surprised that Danny Ryan did not take on a major leadership role. However, the same weekend, while announcing the new co-executive director, Danny Ryan also announced his joining Etherealize as a co-founder. Even voices that had previously expressed criticism, such as Evan Van Ness, later acknowledged Vitalik's decision; he believed that although he had hoped to see Danny play a bigger role in the organization, the new co-executive director, with solid qualifications and experience, has quelled the earlier leadership controversies.

Overall, the discussions within the community surrounding Aya Miyaguchi's transition period were intense, but ultimately converged into a constructive consensus. Community members acknowledged Aya's contributions, and several key figures publicly expressed their gratitude; at the same time, there are high hopes for the new appointments of Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, with expectations that the new leadership structure will address past shortcomings in communication and technical collaboration.

Ecological Reconstruction: The Rise of Etherealize

Previously, the community generally expected Danny Ryan to directly take over the position of Executive Director. However, unexpectedly, Danny Ryan did not return, but instead came back to the Ethereum ecosystem as a co-founder of Etherealize. This choice also hints at another possibility: the formation of a similar new organization to fill the gaps, focusing on the real implementation of Ethereum technology and commercial potential.

As Danny Ryan said: "Rather than talking about the vision of Ethereum, it's better to show how institutions can practically utilize Ethereum." Guided by this philosophy, he chose Etherealize - a platform focused on the commercial expansion and marketing of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Core Mission

Etherealize is not just a marketing tool, but a multidimensional platform, with its core mission reflected in the following four aspects.