- The Ethereum Foundation has recently shaken things up by restructuring its core development team and trimming down its headcount.
- The goal is to zero in on two of the biggest challenges facing the network today: scaling and user experience.
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is going through a major shift in 2025, with a refreshed leadership structure and a renewed focus on key development priorities. This is after the network’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, announced in January that there would be changes to the leadership in EF.
The goal is clear: make Ethereum (ETH) faster, more scalable, and easier to use, while ensuring it stays ahead of the curve in blockchain innovation. To lead this next chapter, the Foundation has assigned specific leaders to each strategic area and has also laid off some staff.
Tim Beiko and Ansgar Dietrichs will oversee efforts to scale Ethereum’s Layer 1, while Alex Stokes and Francesco D’Amato take charge of Layer 2 scaling. On the user experience front, Barnabé Monnot and Josh Rudolf will be steering improvements to make Ethereum more intuitive and accessible. Supporting all of these tracks is Dankrad Feist, who will serve as an advisor across the board. Together, this new leadership lineup is expected to push forward the key projects that will shape Ethereum’s future and restore confidence in its protocol development roadmap.
The Foundation explained the motivations behind the overhaul. “As a response, we must rethink our current approach to designing, developing, and stewarding the protocol,” the report read.
Shipping protocol is messy work—it forces us to respond to evolving demands that are difficult to define, let alone meet. But it is our responsibility to use our skills to benefit the broader community.
With that in mind, the Foundation is doubling down on areas where it has unmatched expertise: writing mission-critical code, publishing cutting-edge research, and coordinating large-scale upgrades.
EF’s Strategic Initiatives
To align the entire organization with this mission, the Ethereum Foundation has now centered its operational strategy around three key priorities: scaling Layer 1, scaling blobs (data availability), and improving user experience. These goals are not just ideals, they are now tied to clearly defined initiatives with dedicated leadership and coordination structures. The report emphasized the importance of making these goals the driving force behind every decision:
It is time for us to ensure that these goals directly drive our attention and resource allocation.
According to a CNF report, Ethereum’s recent “Pectra” upgrade, which went live on May 7, is a big step forward in its ongoing evolution. This update increases the staking limit to 2,048 ETH while also fine-tuning both the consensus protocol and user wallet features to make the network more efficient and user-friendly.
The broader goal? Ethereum wants to make it easy and safe for everyday users to store over $1,000, while also giving major institutions the confidence to invest over $1 trillion into a single smart contract. If successful, these upgrades could seriously boost Ethereum’s appeal across the board.
With these changes now in place, analysts are becoming more optimistic, some are even targeting the $4,000 mark for ETH. Right now, Ethereum is trading at $2,630, still about 46% below its all-time high of $4,891.
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