The Ethereum Foundation is undergoing a major restructuring: staff reduced by 20%
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has completed a multi-month reorganization aimed at optimizing treasury management and implementing a new strategic policy. As a result of these changes, 54 employees left the foundation, accounting for about 20% of the total team size.
The new EF structure now includes five working clusters: Protocol Layer, Access Layer, User Layer, Community Layer, and Institutional Layer. Additionally, separate blocks have been allocated for operational and management support. This architecture is designed to improve resource allocation efficiency and accelerate decision-making within the organization.
For laid-off employees, the foundation has developed a severance package. It provides for a payment of at least one month's salary for each year of service (or the local statutory minimum, whichever is higher). Additionally, the EF assists in finding a new role within the Ethereum ecosystem and allocates a small grant for related expenses.
In my view, this decision demonstrates the maturity of the Ethereum Foundation as an institutional player. The staff reduction amid the transition to a cluster model is not just about cost-cutting, but an attempt to adapt to new challenges in the face of growing competition from other L1 solutions and the need for more flexible management. However, it is important that the loss of experienced personnel does not impact the pace of development of key network upgrades, such as further scaling through sharding and improving UX for end users.