The Ethereum Foundation has officially announced the dissolution of the Protocol Support team. This decision is part of a large-scale reorganization of the foundation, which previously resulted in a reduction of approximately 20% of its staff. As a leading crypto market analyst, I view this move as one of the most significant signals of a shift in priorities within the management of the Ethereum ecosystem.
The disbanded team performed critically important functions in coordinating the development process. Its responsibilities included organizing All Core Developers meetings, tracking network upgrades, supporting Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), and running a program to train new contributors. In effect, it was the "nerve center" of the network's technical development.
What actually happened?
Mario Havel, who worked on the team for over five years, confirmed that he remains with the foundation, but his unit has been completely disbanded, and some colleagues have lost their positions. Former team lead William Morriss also left the foundation as part of this reorganization.
In addition to coordinating meetings, the team managed the Forkcast platform—a public tool for tracking upgrades, EIPs, testnets, and mainnet activation plans. Of particular note is the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship program, which over four years trained dozens of new specialists to work on the core protocol.
Part of broader cuts
This dissolution followed the announcement of the foundation's new structure on June 23. At that time, the Ethereum Foundation cut 54 positions—about 20% of its staff—after months of analyzing activities and expenses. Vitalik Buterin confirmed these figures and discussed the budget reduction.
The foundation reorganized its work around five main areas: protocol, access, users, community, and institutional level. Affected employees were promised severance pay and support with job transitions.
Expert commentary from Cryptalist
While the foundation has not publicly disclosed where the functions of the disbanded team will go—management of developer meetings, the Forkcast platform, the Fellowship program, and EIP support remain in limbo—core protocol development continues. Teams are working on the Glamsterdam upgrade, and it does not depend on a single foundation team, as client developers and independent contributors operate across different organizations. In my view, this is a risky step: the loss of a single coordination hub could slow down decision-making on key upgrades, although it does increase management decentralization.