The Ethereum Foundation has announced that it will cut its annual budget by approximately 40 percent this year, confirming that around 54 staff members—roughly 20 percent of its workforce—are departing as part of a wider restructuring. The move comes as the organization pivots towards a long-term endowment funding model, signaling major changes within one of the Ethereum ecosystem’s core institutions.
Budget overhaul and staff departures
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, explained that these steps align with the foundation’s updated mandate and treasury management strategy. The organization aims to shift from its previous policy of spending around 15 percent of remaining assets per year before 2026, to targeting an annual expenditure of approximately 5 percent beyond 2030. The Ethereum Foundation remains one of the most influential non-profits backing Ethereum’s development.
Buterin acknowledged that the budget reduction involved difficult choices and real losses for the foundation, highlighting that many departing employees were experienced engineers who have played instrumental roles in advancing the Ethereum protocol for years.
The foundation stated that it will provide severance pay and transition support to affected staff. Severance packages are to be calculated based on whichever is greater: one month’s salary per year worked at the foundation or the legal minimum requirement in the relevant country.
Transition support will also include a limited grant to help cover career counseling and aid employees in finding new opportunities within the Ethereum ecosystem. The foundation noted that some departing staff may continue contributing to Ethereum through other organizations.
Restructuring into seven core groups
As part of its reorganization, the Ethereum Foundation is now structured into seven main clusters: protocol, access, user, community, enterprise, as well as operations and management. The new design is intended to clarify roles and responsibilities throughout the organization.
The access group will focus on enabling users and software agents to interact directly with Ethereum without intermediaries. Areas of emphasis will include reading on-chain data, submitting transactions, validation, delegation, and exiting the system. Notably, there will be a strong focus on verifiable interfaces and giving users direct control over their assets.
Mini glossary: Self custody means digital assets are controlled directly by users, not exchanges or custodians. Formal verification is a technical approach that uses mathematical methods to test if software and protocols comply with specific rules.
The user group will address user needs, education, use-case scenarios and impact measurement. The community group is tasked with all communications, both within and outside the crypto sector. The enterprise group will work with financial firms, the private sector, governments, universities and non-profits to develop Ethereum-based applications.
A leaner Ethereum vision and market reaction
According to Buterin, the streamlined structure could allow for more specialization within Ethereum’s multi-client model. He also noted that applying artificial intelligence-driven formal verification to more components could reduce the resources needed to prepare numerous Ethereum Improvement Proposals.
Buterin said once Strawmap is complete, the foundation will favor a lighter approach that prioritizes limited high-impact changes and security fixes.
Following these statements, Ether’s price dropped nearly 4 percent to $1,661.90, falling below the $1,700 mark amid increased selling pressure. The move coincided with wider market weakness, as investors were also reacting to Bitcoin slipping below the $63,000 level and assessing the implications of the Ethereum Foundation’s restructuring.
