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The Ethereum Foundation said Monday it has cut 54 jobs, or about 20% of its staff, as it completed a major restructuring. The group also divided its remaining team into five clusters focused on protocol, access, user, community, and institutional work. The foundation said the move aims to make it leaner and more focused on work, it says, only it can do.
The change follows a process tied to its Mandate and Treasury Management Policy, both introduced in 2025. According to the foundation, the new setup should sharpen its priorities and improve execution. At the same time, the restructuring arrives during a difficult stretch for the organization. Several senior leaders have left in the past five months, and the foundation has not named permanent replacements for its top roles.
The Protocol Layer cluster will handle forks, transaction pipeline defense against MEV, and long-term research. Its scope also includes post-quantum security, zkEVM work, and L1 privacy. The Access Layer cluster will focus on keeping a credible, intermediary-free path open for on-chain actions such as reading state, transacting, proving, and exiting.
The User Layer cluster will keep protocol and access decisions tied to real user needs. The Community Layer will manage how the Ethereum Foundation presents itself externally. It will also handle relationships with allied movements in privacy, open-source software, and civil liberties.
The Institutional Layer will oversee engagement with enterprises, governments, and academic institutions. Each cluster carries a distinct remit inside the reorganized foundation. The structure gives the organization a narrower focus while separating technical, social, and institutional work.
The restructuring comes after a wave of departures among senior figures. At least eight senior people have left the organization over the past five months. That list includes both co-executive directors, Tomasz Stańczak and Hsiao-Wei Wang.
Stańczak left earlier this year. Wang announced her departure last week after a sabbatical. Board member Bastian Aue has stepped into an interim leadership role. The foundation has not announced permanent replacements for either position.
Can the new structure steady the foundation during such a leadership gap? The organization has said it will share more details in the coming weeks and months. It also said the broader ecosystem will get more guidance on how to engage with the new setup.
Read More: Ethereum Sees Record Network Usage: Is the $1,300–$1,400 Bottom in Place?
The changes land while ETH trades around $1,673. The token sits roughly 66% below its all-time high of $4,946, which it reached in August 2025. ETH has struggled throughout 2026 under macro headwinds, leadership uncertainty, and persistent ETF outflows.
The protocol’s biggest planned upgrade since the Merge, called Glamsterdam, has also slipped. The upgrade aims for a 3.3x gas limit expansion and about 10,000 transactions per second on L1. It now targets Q3 2026.
Elsewhere, a wallet tied to a16z reportedly withdrew 25,560 ETH from Binance, worth about $42.62 million. Lookonchain shared the transaction on social media, and the post drew strong attention. The withdrawal happened nine hours earlier and drew 411 likes and 44 retweets.
The report also says Ethereum trading volume stood at zero, while the market showed no immediate price reaction. It adds that the move may reflect institutional accumulation. Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, has backed major blockchain projects and has shown interest in Ethereum before.
The Ethereum Foundation has cut 54 jobs and reorganized its team into five clusters to sharpen its focus. The move comes during a period of leadership change, ETH weakness, and rising market attention around a16z’s large withdrawal.
