Zug, Switzerland – [Current Date] – The Ethereum Foundation (EF), a cornerstone organization supporting the development and growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, has announced a significant leadership transition. Tomasz Stanczak, a respected figure and current Co-Executive Director (co-ED), will be stepping down from his role at the end of February 2026. Taking over the mantle will be Bastian Aue, who will assume the co-ED position alongside the continuing Hsiao-Wei. The announcement, delivered by Stanczak himself, paints a vivid picture of optimism for the future of Ethereum, its burgeoning community of builders, the Foundation’s strategic direction, and Stanczak’s own forthcoming endeavors.
A New Chapter: Leadership Transition at the Ethereum Foundation
The forthcoming change in leadership marks a pivotal moment for the Ethereum Foundation, signaling both continuity and evolution in its strategic oversight. Tomasz Stanczak’s departure is framed not as an ending, but as a strategic transition enabling the EF to adapt and thrive, while allowing Stanczak to pursue new avenues within the broader Ethereum landscape.
The Departure of Tomasz Stanczak
Tomasz Stanczak’s tenure as Co-Executive Director has been characterized by a relentless drive for progress and a commitment to empowering the diverse talent within the Ethereum ecosystem. In his announcement, Stanczak reflected on his role, emphasizing that it was "impactful and desirable," a position where one could genuinely "make a meaningful difference by empowering people of extraordinary talent and dedication, both at the EF and more broadly in the Ethereum ecosystem." This sentiment underscores his belief in the human capital driving Ethereum’s innovation.
Stanczak’s decision to step down by February 2026 is presented as a considered move, timed to ensure a smooth handover and to capitalize on the robust organizational health of the Foundation. He noted that while his ability to independently execute within the EF might diminish over time, his continued presence beyond 2026 would feel more like "just staying around to pass the baton." This forward-thinking approach highlights a leader confident in the groundwork laid and the capabilities of the incoming team. Under his guidance, the EF has experienced a period of accelerated change, demonstrating an impressive capacity for swift adaptation and strategic execution. The roadmap has been clarified, goals set, and internal leaders empowered to make autonomous decisions, fostering a culture of ownership and accountability. Stanczak expressed profound satisfaction with the current state of affairs, attributing much of this success to the tremendous support received from the community.
Bastian Aue Steps Up as Co-Executive Director
The transition will see Bastian Aue elevated to the role of Co-Executive Director, where he will serve alongside Hsiao-Wei, who maintains her leadership position. Aue’s ascension signals a strategic alignment with the Foundation’s ongoing objectives, particularly in areas like policy support and long-term strategic planning, where he has already demonstrated strong leadership. His collaboration with Hsiao-Wei is expected to ensure a seamless continuation of the EF’s mission, leveraging the diverse strengths of both leaders. Hsiao-Wei’s continued presence provides a vital link to the Foundation’s established vision, while Aue’s expanded role is anticipated to inject fresh perspectives and energy into the EF’s executive functions. This dual leadership structure aims to provide comprehensive oversight and foster agile decision-making, crucial for navigating the rapidly evolving blockchain landscape. The announcement conveys a strong sense of confidence in the Foundation’s ability to maintain its trajectory, supported by "the best talent in crypto."
Ethereum’s Enduring Vision and Future Trajectory
Despite the inherent volatility of cryptocurrency markets and the constant emergence and occasional failure of competing ideas, Stanczak’s message radiates an unwavering conviction in Ethereum’s fundamental strength and its indispensable role in the future of technology and finance.
Foundation of Unwavering Conviction
The bedrock of this optimism, according to Stanczak, stems from a "deep understanding of its technology, its governance, its meaning for the future, and the values we share." This profound appreciation for Ethereum’s core tenets—decentralization, credible neutrality, and resilience—serves as a powerful unifying force for its diverse community. Even as individual curiosities drive builders and researchers to explore "very far from the canonical paths," the shared conviction ensures that the ecosystem "converge[s] intermittently," maintaining a cohesive vision. This resilience, born from a decentralized governance model and a community-driven ethos, positions Ethereum as a robust platform capable of weathering market fluctuations and technological shifts, continually attracting and retaining top talent dedicated to its long-term success. The enduring commitment to these core principles is what allows Ethereum to consistently push the boundaries of innovation while maintaining its foundational integrity.
The Dawn of an Agentic Economy and Institutional Integration
Stanczak articulated a compelling vision for Ethereum’s future, highlighting its accelerating transition into the underlying infrastructure for a new era. He observes the ongoing shift of traditional "financial infrastructure to Ethereum," a trend that has gained significant momentum and credibility. Beyond finance, he foresees the imminent "emergence of automated, agentic interactions," a paradigm shift where intelligent agents, often powered by Artificial Intelligence, will autonomously interact and transact. This includes the advent of "robots," novel forms of "governance," and transformative applications in "AI healthcare and education."
In this complex, interconnected future, Stanczak firmly believes that "Ethereum will remain a natural infrastructure layer for coordination of all these technologies interacting." Its robust, immutable, and programmable blockchain offers the ideal environment for these agentic systems to verify transactions, manage identities, and ensure secure, transparent coordination. The rapid advancements in open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) and the burgeoning field of "open-source agentic workers" are seen as the most exciting tools for builders and creators since Ethereum’s early days. These developments are fostering a new wave of innovation, enabling the creation of sophisticated, autonomous applications previously unimaginable.
Crucially, Stanczak emphasized that while these new paradigms bring "important privacy and security questions," Ethereum’s foundational "cypherpunk ethos remains intact." A dedicated community of "privacy builders and security experts" is actively working to ensure the network helps users preserve privacy and maintain access to essential infrastructure, thereby reinforcing the trust and integrity of the platform in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Supporting Data: The year 2025 notably solidified Ethereum’s position as the clear institutional preference within the blockchain space. Data dashboards consistently reflected Ethereum’s "growing market share in stablecoins and RWA activity." This significant uptake by traditional financial entities underscores its maturation and reliability. Ethereum is now widely perceived as the "lowest-risk chain" due to its unparalleled characteristics: "credible neutrality, decentralization, and no downtime since genesis." These attributes collectively present institutions with an infrastructure boasting "uniquely low counterparty, technology, and jurisdiction risk," making it an attractive and secure choice for integrating blockchain technology into their operations. This institutional embrace is further highlighted by the upcoming "major institutional Ethereum conference coming to New York this year," a clear indicator of its mainstream acceptance. With the profound advancements in AI and its deepening integration into global financial systems, Stanczak confidently declared that there has "rarely been a more exciting time to build on Ethereum."
The Ethereum Foundation’s Strategic Evolution and Impact
Under Stanczak’s leadership, the Ethereum Foundation has not only supported the ecosystem but also undergone a significant internal transformation, enhancing its operational efficiency, strategic clarity, and outreach capabilities.
A Period of Accelerated Change and Growth
Stanczak proudly detailed the rapid pace of change delivered at the EF, a testament to the "great talent that learns quickly and has a great direction for 2026." He described the co-ED position as "extremely rewarding, strategically challenging, and brought me a lot of joy and inspiration," underscoring the dynamic environment within the Foundation. The improvements implemented during his tenure are extensive and impactful, reflecting a comprehensive strategy to bolster the EF’s effectiveness and its relationship with the broader Ethereum community.
Key achievements and ongoing improvements include:
- Accelerating decision-making: Streamlining processes to enable quicker responses to ecosystem needs.
- Speaking to younger generations and bringing new excitement to builders: Tailoring communication and engagement strategies to inspire emerging talent.
- Communicating more openly on social media and podcasts: Enhancing transparency and reach through modern media channels.
- Becoming more open to institutions: Fostering dialogue and collaboration with traditional financial and governmental bodies.
- Supporting founders: Providing resources and guidance to entrepreneurs building on Ethereum.
- Setting up treasury policies: Establishing clear and responsible financial management frameworks.
- Strengthening local hubs and communities: Expanding the global footprint and localized support for Ethereum developers and enthusiasts.
- Introducing compensation policy: Ensuring fair and competitive remuneration for EF staff.
- Bringing more clarity to the L1–L2 relationship: Addressing a critical area of architectural development within the ecosystem.
- Creating more internal and external transparency around budgets and structure: Increasing accountability and understanding of the Foundation’s operations.
These initiatives have either been successfully completed or are consistently improving, driven by dedicated individuals who "continue working on Ethereum." This strategic shift has also contributed to a clearer perception of ETH as a "store of value," reflecting its growing economic significance. Stanczak characterized the EF as being in a "healthy state of an organization that can balance long-term goals and the need for change," describing it as "unique, far from boring, very resilient, and led by highly intelligent people."
A Robust Roadmap for Protocol Development and Ecosystem Support
Looking ahead to 2026, Stanczak conveyed immense excitement about the EF’s future role. A major upcoming initiative is the planned release of "a proposal for a merged LEAN Ethereum and core development roadmap." This comprehensive document, developed by the EF Protocol team, is intended to provide "clear guidance and a setup for coordination in 2026 and beyond," charting the long-term path for the Ethereum protocol. This strategic roadmap is crucial for aligning efforts across the decentralized development community.
The core developers, supported by the EF’s coordination teams, have demonstrated exceptional capability, having already delivered "two network upgrades in 2025" and are "well positioned to keep shipping essential improvements on time." This consistent delivery record is vital for maintaining Ethereum’s competitive edge and technological advancement.
Beyond core protocol development, the EF has established specialized teams addressing critical areas:
- Quantum Strategy: A "very clear quantum strategy" is in place, with leading "quantum security researchers finalizing the specs and the best engineers working on implementations." Post-quantum security has a prominent place in the EF Protocol roadmap, addressing future cryptographic threats.
- Decentralized AI Team: A dedicated team is focused on "delivering standards, experiments, and solutions for the agentic economy," reflecting Ethereum’s proactive engagement with the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
- Ecosystem Development (EcoDev) Team: This team concentrates on "the success of founders, institutions, and governments building on Ethereum," fostering adoption and innovation.
- Global Policy Support Team: Addressing the increasing regulatory complexity, this team ensures that Ethereum’s voice is heard in policy discussions worldwide.
The Foundation is also leveraging technology internally, "automating more and more of our efforts by using AI for coordination," enhancing efficiency. Communication efforts have also seen significant improvements, with clearer messaging about roadmaps, use cases, and applications, thanks to the excellent work from teams at ethereum.org and forkcast.org.
Navigating the L1-L2 Landscape and Upholding Core Values
One of the most significant discussion points and challenges over the past year has been the evolving "L1–L2 relationship." Vitalik Buterin’s recent posts have been instrumental in providing "more clarity about the situation that has been observed for a long time." L2s (Layer 2 solutions) are recognized as extensions or builds on top of Ethereum, each presenting "various security and decentralization trade-offs." These L2s strategically choose to build their value proposition by balancing risks and user experience across parameters such as scaling, decentralization, historical state availability, and privacy.
To facilitate coordination and understanding within this complex landscape, the EF created the Platform team, which successfully convened over 20 Ethereum L2s at the "Network School" to discuss "the future of scaling, differentiation, and interoperability." This collaborative effort has resulted in teams building based rollups, native rollups, and synchronous composability beginning the current year "with clearer visions and a more focused approach." Stanczak highlighted a compelling trend: "Recently, major Ethereum rollups have started more and more consistently overtaking all AltL1s in the stablecoin and TPS metrics," a trajectory he is "convinced will continue," solidifying Ethereum’s modular scaling strategy.
While expanding its openness to applications and institutional engagement, the EF has remained firmly "centered around cypherpunk values." Groups like Vitalik’s Silviculture Society actively advise senior leaders on "emerging risks and warning against false steps," ensuring the preservation of Ethereum’s core principles. Vitalik’s series of tweets at the beginning of 2026 further reinforced the importance of what is "fundamental to the EF’s existence." The work of PSE and Kohaku now primarily focuses on "applied privacy," while the Protocol team has dedicated increased effort to "security and censorship resistance" through initiatives like FOCIL and the "Trillion Dollar Security program."
Looking ahead, Stanczak expressed immense excitement for "Devcon Mumbai," slated for 2026, which will bring global blockchain thought leaders and founders together. He noted that the Indian community has "deserved this event for years," signifying the EF’s commitment to supporting diverse global communities.
The EF is also demonstrating enhanced effectiveness in "speaking to the new generation of builders." The contributions of "new voices at the EF" and the talented individuals working behind the scenes with founders and media are generating "new energy," expected to keep the community engaged throughout 2026, particularly with the burgeoning movement around agentic AI and Ethereum’s emergence as its "go-to trust infrastructure."
The "Ethereum Everywhere" initiative continues to support local hubs in key global cities such as San Francisco, Lagos, London, Berlin, and Hong Kong. The Academic Secretariat team plans numerous university events, and the "pop-up cities idea maintains momentum," fostering organized scenes where new builders and long-term thought leaders can connect and collaborate worldwide. Furthermore, the DeFi coordination team at the EF is set to publish a blog post detailing their plans and roadmap, showcasing the "talent that we brought to the EF to help with the DeFi coordination," affirming their commitment to supporting the DeFi ecosystem.
The leadership structure supporting Hsiao-Wei and Bastian Aue is robust. James Smith continues his mission, having been instrumental in the "entire EcoDev transformation on the builders, founders, and institutional side." Policy support and long-term work remain under the capable leadership of Bastian Aue and Tju Liang. Josh Stark is recognized for his "exceptional talent for executing operational changes fast" and for leading "all the major communication changes on social media that happened in 2025." The engineers and researchers within the Protocol cluster are working more closely than ever, confidently setting roadmaps and tackling the toughest technological challenges. This collaborative and agile environment underscores Stanczak’s observation that "the EF is the place where things move fast, and changes can happen within days or weeks."
Tomasz Stanczak’s Future Endeavors
As Tomasz Stanczak prepares to transition out of his co-ED role, he has outlined a future path that remains deeply intertwined with the Ethereum ecosystem, albeit with a renewed focus on hands-on building and frontier technology.
A Return to Hands-On Building and Frontier Tech
Stanczak has committed to remaining accessible, stating his "DMs stay open for all of you who need support in connecting with people at the EF or discussing the vision and strategy of Ethereum." He also plans to be available for "the EF leadership, should they ever feel they need advice," while acknowledging that he has often received valuable counsel from them in the past. A key element of his future engagement will be to "always put pressure on the Ethereum ecosystem to move at pace," advocating for continuous innovation and progress.
His personal trajectory involves a more direct engagement with the foundational elements of the ecosystem. He plans to "continue traveling and working with local communities and helping businesses build on Ethereum." More specifically, he intends to "act more as a core dev, a hands-on product builder," signaling a return to the direct creation and implementation of technology. His particular interest lies in "agentic core development and agentic governance," an area he believes holds immense transformative potential.
Stanczak draws a compelling parallel to his earlier career, stating he feels "much the same as I felt when I started Nethermind in 2017." At that time, he possessed a strong conviction that "a big change was happening," foreseeing Ethereum’s potential to "replace the financial systems." His background in the financial industry equipped him to envision this as "more of an evolution rather than a revolution." Today, he carries a similar conviction regarding "agentic systems and AI-assisted discovery," believing they are "reshaping the world." He acknowledges the "impermanence or even uselessness of some of the agentic ideas," but emphasizes that "playful experimentation" was a defining characteristic of early Ethereum innovation, a spirit he aims to rekindle.
Ultimately, Stanczak’s future involves working "directly with founders in frontier tech and Ethereum," driven by a desire to "see and support the realization of the vision that I have talked about over the last years." He concludes with an enthusiastic declaration, affirming that it is "one of the most exciting times to be a builder on Ethereum."
Reflections and Gratitude: The Broader Ethereum Community
Tomasz Stanczak’s announcement concluded with heartfelt gratitude, acknowledging the vast network of individuals who have contributed to his journey and to Ethereum’s success during his tenure.
A Network of Support and Collaboration
He recognized the impossibility of listing everyone who offered support to him, the EF, and Ethereum throughout 2025. His role as co-ED involved extensive global engagement, as he "visited over 20 countries for work and spent much time with local communities." Through these travels, he met "thousands of people: builders, financiers, educators, policymakers, creators, researchers, academics," a testament to the diverse and global reach of the Ethereum ecosystem. Stanczak expressed deep appreciation for "all the words of support, tough questions, and critique coming from you," highlighting the value of constructive feedback in his leadership.
Specific thanks were extended to the EF board "for taking the bold step of bringing me on to join Hsiao-Wei as a co-ED." He also thanked Hsiao-Wei and the management team for their collaborative spirit in "moving fast together." He singled out Bastian Aue, Josh Stark, and Tju Liang for their "emotional intelligence and facilitating thoughtful discussions when facing the most difficult matters." Joe Schweitzer was acknowledged for his crucial role in "reviewing countless podcasts and helping us all reach a broad audience when talking about the future of Ethereum."
A significant portion of his gratitude was directed towards the hundreds of Ethereum leaders who reached out in March and April 2025, offering invaluable insights into "every single thing that needed attention and sharing their views on what the EF strategy should be." Stanczak candidly admitted, "I would never have found the right paths without you," emphasizing the critical role of community wisdom. Finally, he extended a comprehensive thank you to "every single person at the EF for executing on your beliefs and talents," underscoring the collective effort that underpins the Foundation’s achievements.
Tomasz Stanczak’s impending departure marks the end of an impactful chapter for the Ethereum Foundation, but his announcement clearly articulates a future for Ethereum that is vibrant, innovative, and continues to attract the brightest minds in technology and finance. The transition to Bastian Aue alongside Hsiao-Wei is positioned as a natural evolution, ensuring the Foundation remains a steadfast pillar of support for the decentralized future.
