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In March 2025, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced a monumental leadership restructuring: Executive Director Aya Miyagotchi stepped down from her operational role to assume the position of President, while Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were appointed as co-Executive Directors. Concurrently, former EF researcher Danny Ryan joined Etherealize.
Facing fierce competition, Ethereum stands at a crossroads. This shakeup is not just a personnel adjustment but a strategic gamble over its future direction. For years, Aya championed an idealistic vision of building an "infinite garden" for Ethereum. However, as market competition intensified and issues like high gas fees and network congestion emerged, the community began questioning EF’s conservative resource allocation and cultural promotion strategies. Extreme criticisms and attacks against Aya even prompted Vitalik Buterin to urge calm.
Against this backdrop, EF’s leadership reshuffle aims to address external discontent while forging a new equilibrium between idealism and market pragmatism. This analysis examines the transformation from three angles: EF’s organizational restructuring, Etherealize’s positioning, and EF’s recent adjustments and future outlook, assessing the efficacy of its strategic pivot thus far.
Aya’s Tenure
Since 2018, Aya Miyaguchi has served as EF’s Executive Director, overseeing Ethereum’s critical transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake.
Strategically, Aya advocated for a "philosophy of subtraction," urging EF to avoid becoming a centralized authority and instead decentralize opportunities and responsibilities across the community. EF adhered to core values of openness, trustless neutrality, and decentralization, shunning profit-chasing or aggressive marketing.
Internally, Aya spearheaded the creation of new teams and initiatives. For instance, the 2022 EF Fellowship program supported builders in emerging communities, advancing the "next billion" vision. Meanwhile, conferences like Devconnect (introduced in 2021) showcased EF’s experimental approach to community-building.
EF’s Structure and Recent Changes
As a nonprofit, EF operates not as a rigid pyramid but as a "community of teams." It supports semi-autonomous groups collaborating under shared values while specializing in their respective domains.
EF’s structure is divided into four functional pillars:
Protocol Research & Development (PR&D)
Ecosystem Development (EcoDev)
Operations (Ops)
Privacy & Scalability Explorations (PSE)
These pillars work cohesively, coordinated by the "Protocol Guild" and "Protocol Support" teams, alongside external communities, research institutions, and developers. EF acts as a bridge, organizing client interoperability workshops, network upgrades, and global events like Devcon. Its management avoids micromanagement, fostering a culture of self-reliance and accountability.
Protocol Research Reorganization
From late 2024 to early 2025, EF’s research arm underwent a significant transformation. The Ethereum Foundation Research (EFR) split into five specialized groups:
Applied Research Group (ARG)
Consensus R&D
Cryptography
Protocol Security
Robust Incentives Group (RIG)
This restructuring addressed EF’s rapid expansion in cryptography and security, enabling focused research and enhanced efficiency. Longtime researchers Alex Stokes and Barnabé Monnot were appointed co-leads of research.
PSE’s Evolution
The PSE team, formerly EF’s AppliedZKP group, now operates as an interdisciplinary "community of teams," parallel to EF’s semi-autonomous units. Through workshops, hackathons, and testnets (e.g., Alphanet, Testnet), PSE advances Ethereum’s privacy and scalability. Born from EF’s need to bridge academic zero-knowledge and MPC research with engineering, PSE underwent a major restructuring in 2024, with most original members departing, effectively "rebooting" the team.
Post-Reshuffle Leadership
Under the new structure:
Aya Miyagotchi (President): Focuses on strategic partnerships and external relations, reducing direct involvement in daily operations.
Hsiao-Wei Wang & Tomasz Stańczak (Co-Executive Directors): Share managerial duties in a parallel, collaborative model.
Research Leadership: Barnabé Monnot and Alex Stokes co-lead research, while Tju Liang Chua remains General Counsel, and Bastian and Josh Stark oversee management and operations.
EF’s new leadership introduces a dual-executive model, appointing two directors with deep technical expertise:
Hsiao-Wei Wang
Joining EF in 2017 as a core researcher, Wang holds a degree in Network Engineering from National Chiao Tung University. She specialized in sharding and beacon chain technology, playing a pivotal role in The Merge (2022). As Executive Director, she now leads R&D and community-building, symbolizing Ethereum’s renewed focus on technical innovation and grassroots engagement.
Tomasz Stańczak
Renowned for his leadership at Nethermind, Tomasz grew the Execution client’s market share to ~35%, second only to Geth. Beyond client development, he explored MEV and PBS, bringing strategic vision and operational acumen to EF.
New Structure’s Objectives
Decentralized Decision-Making: Two independent executives reduce single-point risks and allow stakeholders to engage with leaders aligned with their preferences (e.g., European institutions can interface with Tomasz during his April–July tours).
Complementary Strengths: Wang’s technical depth (e.g., beacon chain, sharding, ETH 2.0) complements Tomasz’s organizational and operational expertise.
Aya’s Transition & Vitalik’s Return to Research
Aya now focuses on external strategy and partnerships, leaving daily operations to Wang and Tomasz. Tomasz revealed that the reshuffle aims to free Vitalik for research (e.g., RISC-V, zkVMs) and privacy discourse, aligning with EF’s core values. While Vitalik’s proposals carry weight, they often spark debate, with community reviews potentially revising or rejecting them.
Community Reception
The community welcomed Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz. Georgios Konstantopoulos (Paradigm CTO) praised Tomasz’s "new heights" of wisdom and technical acumen. Sassal hailed the co-leadership as a "transformative shift" for Ethereum’s next phase. Builders anticipate a balanced governance model, pairing research and engineering leadership.
Some expressed surprise at Danny Ryan’s exclusion from EF’s top roles. However, Danny joined Etherealize as a co-founder, ending leadership controversies. Even critics like Evan Van Ness acknowledged Vitalik’s decision, recognizing the new executives’ credentials.
The community expected Danny Ryan to succeed Aya as EF’s Executive Director. Instead, he co-founded Etherealize, signaling a parallel effort to complement EF’s work, focusing on Ethereum’s technical and commercial potential.
Core Mission
Etherealize is a multifaceted platform with four pillars:
Institutional Onboarding & Productization: Facilitates traditional finance’s transition to Ethereum (e.g., BlackRock’s $1B on-chain Treasuries, Franklin Templeton’s mutual funds).
Tech-Market Synergy: Integrates R&D with business development, iterating zero-knowledge proofs, privacy modules, and cross-rollup bridges.
Policy Advocacy: Engages in regulatory dialogues, publishing accessible policy analyses (e.g., stablecoin legislation, tokenized securities rules).
Feedback & Transparency: Tracks on-chain metrics (e.g., L2 TVL, tokenized assets) and off-chain developments (e.g., compliance progress, partnerships).
Dual-Track Structure
Etherealize operates as two legal entities:
Etherealize Inc. (For-profit, Delaware C-Corp): Provides end-to-end tokenization services, Layer 2 deployments, and compliance toolkits for banks and asset managers.
Etherealize Foundation (Nonprofit): Focuses on open-source R&D, privacy tools, and policy advocacy to bridge real-world and Ethereum ecosystems.
This model has driven rapid growth: the for-profit arm secured BlackRock and Franklin Templeton projects, while the nonprofit hosted regulatory roundtables and piloted zero-knowledge privacy solutions.
Origins
The idea for Etherealize emerged after the July 23, 2024, Ethereum ETF launch, which disappointed due to low adoption despite Wall Street’s endorsement. Grant Hummer and investor James Fickle sought leaders with Wall Street and Ethereum expertise, recruiting Vivek Raman. With Vitalik’s and EF’s support, the team launched in January 2025, evolving from BD to delivery. Recognizing the need for tangible tools, they brought in Zach Obront and Danny Ryan.
2025 Roadmap
Q2: Launch institutional-grade SDK with custody integration, compliance checks, and gas optimization.
Q3: Pilot enterprise wallets using Noir zero-knowledge compilers.
Q4: Expand into Asia-Pacific and Europe via partnerships with Singapore’s Digital Port and Switzerland’s Crypto Valley.
Traditional finance has long favored Ethereum and its Layer 2 ecosystems, which dominate RWA value (>50% via RWA.xyz).
Key Institutional Partnerships
Fidelity: Launched Ethereum spot ETF (FETH) in 2024 after years of digital asset布局.
JPMorgan: Pioneered Quorum (2016) and DeFi cross-currency trades (2022) via Polygon.
Goldman Sachs: Tokenized €100M EIB bonds (2021) using Ethereum smart contracts.
HSBC: Connects private chains to Ethereum via HSBC Orion for bond issuance and digital gold.
UBS: Launched the first tokenized investment fund (uMINT) on Ethereum (2024) and demonstrated gold trading on zkSync (2025).
In contrast, Solana’s RWA focus remains on stablecoins, with limited non-stablecoin assets. While BUIDL (BlackRock) and BENJI (Franklin Templeton) launched Solana-based funds, Ethereum’s ETF approvals and Layer 2 dominance position it ahead, despite Solana’s growing institutional interest.
As _gabrielShapir0 noted, "Etherealize is essentially a second EF—a cultural and strategic divergence making Ethereum more social and diverse."
This reshuffle marks a pivotal political moment for Ethereum, where cultural rifts surface. The L0 future will prioritize social decentralization, akin to client diversity. Competing strategic visions—from ETH promotion to long-term roadmaps—now proliferate.
Etherealize’s dual structure (for-profit/nonprofit) grants flexibility, with technology-driven, product-focused operations. This makes it a potent platform for bridging traditional finance and Ethereum.
In March 2025, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced a monumental leadership restructuring: Executive Director Aya Miyagotchi stepped down from her operational role to assume the position of President, while Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were appointed as co-Executive Directors. Concurrently, former EF researcher Danny Ryan joined Etherealize.
Facing fierce competition, Ethereum stands at a crossroads. This shakeup is not just a personnel adjustment but a strategic gamble over its future direction. For years, Aya championed an idealistic vision of building an "infinite garden" for Ethereum. However, as market competition intensified and issues like high gas fees and network congestion emerged, the community began questioning EF’s conservative resource allocation and cultural promotion strategies. Extreme criticisms and attacks against Aya even prompted Vitalik Buterin to urge calm.
Against this backdrop, EF’s leadership reshuffle aims to address external discontent while forging a new equilibrium between idealism and market pragmatism. This analysis examines the transformation from three angles: EF’s organizational restructuring, Etherealize’s positioning, and EF’s recent adjustments and future outlook, assessing the efficacy of its strategic pivot thus far.
Aya’s Tenure
Since 2018, Aya Miyaguchi has served as EF’s Executive Director, overseeing Ethereum’s critical transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake.
Strategically, Aya advocated for a "philosophy of subtraction," urging EF to avoid becoming a centralized authority and instead decentralize opportunities and responsibilities across the community. EF adhered to core values of openness, trustless neutrality, and decentralization, shunning profit-chasing or aggressive marketing.
Internally, Aya spearheaded the creation of new teams and initiatives. For instance, the 2022 EF Fellowship program supported builders in emerging communities, advancing the "next billion" vision. Meanwhile, conferences like Devconnect (introduced in 2021) showcased EF’s experimental approach to community-building.
EF’s Structure and Recent Changes
As a nonprofit, EF operates not as a rigid pyramid but as a "community of teams." It supports semi-autonomous groups collaborating under shared values while specializing in their respective domains.
EF’s structure is divided into four functional pillars:
Protocol Research & Development (PR&D)
Ecosystem Development (EcoDev)
Operations (Ops)
Privacy & Scalability Explorations (PSE)
These pillars work cohesively, coordinated by the "Protocol Guild" and "Protocol Support" teams, alongside external communities, research institutions, and developers. EF acts as a bridge, organizing client interoperability workshops, network upgrades, and global events like Devcon. Its management avoids micromanagement, fostering a culture of self-reliance and accountability.
Protocol Research Reorganization
From late 2024 to early 2025, EF’s research arm underwent a significant transformation. The Ethereum Foundation Research (EFR) split into five specialized groups:
Applied Research Group (ARG)
Consensus R&D
Cryptography
Protocol Security
Robust Incentives Group (RIG)
This restructuring addressed EF’s rapid expansion in cryptography and security, enabling focused research and enhanced efficiency. Longtime researchers Alex Stokes and Barnabé Monnot were appointed co-leads of research.
PSE’s Evolution
The PSE team, formerly EF’s AppliedZKP group, now operates as an interdisciplinary "community of teams," parallel to EF’s semi-autonomous units. Through workshops, hackathons, and testnets (e.g., Alphanet, Testnet), PSE advances Ethereum’s privacy and scalability. Born from EF’s need to bridge academic zero-knowledge and MPC research with engineering, PSE underwent a major restructuring in 2024, with most original members departing, effectively "rebooting" the team.
Post-Reshuffle Leadership
Under the new structure:
Aya Miyagotchi (President): Focuses on strategic partnerships and external relations, reducing direct involvement in daily operations.
Hsiao-Wei Wang & Tomasz Stańczak (Co-Executive Directors): Share managerial duties in a parallel, collaborative model.
Research Leadership: Barnabé Monnot and Alex Stokes co-lead research, while Tju Liang Chua remains General Counsel, and Bastian and Josh Stark oversee management and operations.
EF’s new leadership introduces a dual-executive model, appointing two directors with deep technical expertise:
Hsiao-Wei Wang
Joining EF in 2017 as a core researcher, Wang holds a degree in Network Engineering from National Chiao Tung University. She specialized in sharding and beacon chain technology, playing a pivotal role in The Merge (2022). As Executive Director, she now leads R&D and community-building, symbolizing Ethereum’s renewed focus on technical innovation and grassroots engagement.
Tomasz Stańczak
Renowned for his leadership at Nethermind, Tomasz grew the Execution client’s market share to ~35%, second only to Geth. Beyond client development, he explored MEV and PBS, bringing strategic vision and operational acumen to EF.
New Structure’s Objectives
Decentralized Decision-Making: Two independent executives reduce single-point risks and allow stakeholders to engage with leaders aligned with their preferences (e.g., European institutions can interface with Tomasz during his April–July tours).
Complementary Strengths: Wang’s technical depth (e.g., beacon chain, sharding, ETH 2.0) complements Tomasz’s organizational and operational expertise.
Aya’s Transition & Vitalik’s Return to Research
Aya now focuses on external strategy and partnerships, leaving daily operations to Wang and Tomasz. Tomasz revealed that the reshuffle aims to free Vitalik for research (e.g., RISC-V, zkVMs) and privacy discourse, aligning with EF’s core values. While Vitalik’s proposals carry weight, they often spark debate, with community reviews potentially revising or rejecting them.
Community Reception
The community welcomed Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz. Georgios Konstantopoulos (Paradigm CTO) praised Tomasz’s "new heights" of wisdom and technical acumen. Sassal hailed the co-leadership as a "transformative shift" for Ethereum’s next phase. Builders anticipate a balanced governance model, pairing research and engineering leadership.
Some expressed surprise at Danny Ryan’s exclusion from EF’s top roles. However, Danny joined Etherealize as a co-founder, ending leadership controversies. Even critics like Evan Van Ness acknowledged Vitalik’s decision, recognizing the new executives’ credentials.
The community expected Danny Ryan to succeed Aya as EF’s Executive Director. Instead, he co-founded Etherealize, signaling a parallel effort to complement EF’s work, focusing on Ethereum’s technical and commercial potential.
Core Mission
Etherealize is a multifaceted platform with four pillars:
Institutional Onboarding & Productization: Facilitates traditional finance’s transition to Ethereum (e.g., BlackRock’s $1B on-chain Treasuries, Franklin Templeton’s mutual funds).
Tech-Market Synergy: Integrates R&D with business development, iterating zero-knowledge proofs, privacy modules, and cross-rollup bridges.
Policy Advocacy: Engages in regulatory dialogues, publishing accessible policy analyses (e.g., stablecoin legislation, tokenized securities rules).
Feedback & Transparency: Tracks on-chain metrics (e.g., L2 TVL, tokenized assets) and off-chain developments (e.g., compliance progress, partnerships).
Dual-Track Structure
Etherealize operates as two legal entities:
Etherealize Inc. (For-profit, Delaware C-Corp): Provides end-to-end tokenization services, Layer 2 deployments, and compliance toolkits for banks and asset managers.
Etherealize Foundation (Nonprofit): Focuses on open-source R&D, privacy tools, and policy advocacy to bridge real-world and Ethereum ecosystems.
This model has driven rapid growth: the for-profit arm secured BlackRock and Franklin Templeton projects, while the nonprofit hosted regulatory roundtables and piloted zero-knowledge privacy solutions.
Origins
The idea for Etherealize emerged after the July 23, 2024, Ethereum ETF launch, which disappointed due to low adoption despite Wall Street’s endorsement. Grant Hummer and investor James Fickle sought leaders with Wall Street and Ethereum expertise, recruiting Vivek Raman. With Vitalik’s and EF’s support, the team launched in January 2025, evolving from BD to delivery. Recognizing the need for tangible tools, they brought in Zach Obront and Danny Ryan.
2025 Roadmap
Q2: Launch institutional-grade SDK with custody integration, compliance checks, and gas optimization.
Q3: Pilot enterprise wallets using Noir zero-knowledge compilers.
Q4: Expand into Asia-Pacific and Europe via partnerships with Singapore’s Digital Port and Switzerland’s Crypto Valley.
Traditional finance has long favored Ethereum and its Layer 2 ecosystems, which dominate RWA value (>50% via RWA.xyz).
Key Institutional Partnerships
Fidelity: Launched Ethereum spot ETF (FETH) in 2024 after years of digital asset布局.
JPMorgan: Pioneered Quorum (2016) and DeFi cross-currency trades (2022) via Polygon.
Goldman Sachs: Tokenized €100M EIB bonds (2021) using Ethereum smart contracts.
HSBC: Connects private chains to Ethereum via HSBC Orion for bond issuance and digital gold.
UBS: Launched the first tokenized investment fund (uMINT) on Ethereum (2024) and demonstrated gold trading on zkSync (2025).
In contrast, Solana’s RWA focus remains on stablecoins, with limited non-stablecoin assets. While BUIDL (BlackRock) and BENJI (Franklin Templeton) launched Solana-based funds, Ethereum’s ETF approvals and Layer 2 dominance position it ahead, despite Solana’s growing institutional interest.
As _gabrielShapir0 noted, "Etherealize is essentially a second EF—a cultural and strategic divergence making Ethereum more social and diverse."
This reshuffle marks a pivotal political moment for Ethereum, where cultural rifts surface. The L0 future will prioritize social decentralization, akin to client diversity. Competing strategic visions—from ETH promotion to long-term roadmaps—now proliferate.
Etherealize’s dual structure (for-profit/nonprofit) grants flexibility, with technology-driven, product-focused operations. This makes it a potent platform for bridging traditional finance and Ethereum.
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