After the power transition, where will the Ethereum Foundation go?

Author: Shenchao TechFlow

In March 2025, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced a significant leadership change: Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi stepped down from daily management responsibilities to become the Foundation's Chair. Meanwhile, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were appointed as the new co-executive directors, and the return of former EF researcher Danny Ryan was met with cheers from the community.

This personnel adjustment, in conjunction with the ETH price closely monitored by the market and the Foundation's recent prominence in discussions, resembles a game regarding the future direction of Ethereum. From intense community debates to leadership changes, this story of power transition is also driven by market forces and expectations.

From Executive Director to Chair: A Promotion or a Demotion?

After serving as Executive Director for seven years, the controversial Aya Miyaguchi has been promoted to Chair of the EF. While this appears to be an upgrade, from the perspective of power distribution, this change might be better described as "a promotion in name only," as the practical responsibilities of the Executive Director role are now shared by two individuals, Wang and Stanczak, who are more connected to the technical community. Aya's new role as Chair seems more like a symbolic representative (or mascot) of the Foundation, which may align better with her working style.

In 2018, when Aya Miyaguchi took over as EF Executive Director, she focused on building a more "non-profit and sustainable" future for Ethereum. With an idealistic vision, she defined Ethereum as an "infinite garden," encouraging developers to innovate freely in an open, permissionless ecosystem. The Devcon conference, which Aya promoted, has become an annual celebration for the global Ethereum community.

However, an overly idealistic vision and working style may not meet the community's expectations for the Foundation's future. By last year, dissatisfaction with her leadership style had grown, with some believing she was too conservative in resource allocation. In the face of continuous innovations from Solana, Ethereum's responses seemed sluggish. At that time, as Executive Director, Aya focused more on cultural promotion rather than technological breakthroughs and market operations. Coupled with ongoing news of EF selling ETH amid poor price performance, many developers and investors felt that EF was gradually becoming "unworthy of its position." Community debates intensified, with extreme comments and even death threats directed at her, prompting Vitalik to call for calm.

Now, as Chair, Aya will focus on strategic guidance and external collaboration, marking the end of her practical executive years.

Hsiao-Wei Wang: Early Core Researcher Bridging Community and Technology

One of the new Executive Directors, Hsiao-Wei Wang, is known in Chinese as 王筱薇.

Unlike Aya, Hsiao-Wei Wang's story begins at the intersection of code and community. In 2017, she joined EF as a core researcher, quickly becoming a key figure in Ethereum core development, thanks to her technical background with a master's degree in network engineering from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. Her expertise is concentrated in sharding and the beacon chain, playing a crucial role in The Merge in 2022.

In 2018, she organized and participated in the Ethereum Sharding Workshop in Taipei, attracting developers from around the world. This event showcased the Asia-Pacific Ethereum community and helped her build a reputation for balancing technical expertise and communication. She has traveled extensively across Asia, hosting developer meetups and breaking down complex technical principles to connect with the community's understanding. She recalled, "That was our first real opportunity to bring the global R&D team to the local scene; the atmosphere was fantastic."

Dr. Dong, founder of Celer Network, highly praised Hsiao-Wei Wang, stating that during 2018-2019, Wang worked with Ken, now head of the Uniswap Foundation, on EF's Grant program, being proactive and effective. Wang is well aware of the capabilities of Asian builders and has fought for their voice, being very pragmatic.

Now, as Executive Director, Wang takes on the dual responsibilities of research insights and community building, and her arrival is seen as a signal for Ethereum to regain its technical and grassroots spirit.

Tomasz Stanczak: Architect of Ethereum Infrastructure

If Wang is a bridge between technology and community, then Tomasz Stanczak is more like the architect of Ethereum infrastructure. He is the founder of Nethermind, an execution client that has become an indispensable part of the Ethereum network.

In 2017, Nethermind was just a small project in Poland, where Stanczak and a few friends coded in a small apartment in Warsaw, trying to create an efficient Ethereum client.

Years later, he developed Nethermind into a core technical force within the Ethereum network, supporting its stable operation. His vision extends beyond client development into areas like MEV and PBS (proposer-builder separation). As an early member of Flashbots, he contributed important ideas for Ethereum's decentralization and security, such as optimizing block proposal mechanisms to reduce miners' centralization risks.

At Devcon SEA in 2024, Stanczak stood on stage sharing his visions for the intersection of Ethereum and AI applications. Now, as a co-executive director of EF, he is responsible for ecological growth and safeguarding core values. His engineering background and strategic vision have given the community new expectations for Ethereum's technical future.

Danny Ryan Announces Return to the Ecosystem, a Welcomed Move

Following the announcement of personnel changes, the community's reaction surged. On Twitter, some praised Wang and Stanczak's technical backgrounds, viewing this as a signal for Ethereum's return to a technical focus; others questioned on Reddit whether merely changing personnel could resolve deeper issues. Vitalik also publicly supported this transition, calling it "part of a planned strategy."

At the same time, the well-known former EF researcher Danny Ryan expressed positive affirmation of the personnel changes and announced his return to the Ethereum ecosystem as a co-founder of the Ethereum ecosystem marketing and product department Etherealize. The community also indicated that Danny Ryan's return might guide Ethereum toward a more mature development path.

Interestingly, in an informal community vote on Ether in January of this year, Danny Ryan was selected as the best candidate to serve as the sole leader of EF.

Still Unavoidable: "Too Centralized"?

The leadership change at EF did not come out of nowhere but is an inevitable result of community dissatisfaction, market competition, and technological bottlenecks.

In 2024, Ethereum faces both internal and external challenges: Solana's low-cost, high-efficiency "Meme Paradise" is attracting massive market funds and attention, while Ethereum's high gas fees and congestion issues remain unresolved, leading to mediocre ETH price performance in comparison. A deeper contradiction lies in the governance model. EF's decision-making power has long been concentrated in a few individuals, a structure that appears clumsy in the face of the rapidly evolving market demands.

Community discussions have been exceptionally heated, targeting EF for being too passive under Aya's leadership and failing to respond swiftly to competitive pressures. Some have even directly attacked Aya, claiming her overly idealistic ideas do not match the market's needs at the time, with comments like "Why not eat meat porridge?" and "Ruined Ethereum's golden age" surfacing frequently.

However, this personnel change does not seem to have truly resolved the "centralization" issue at EF's upper levels. After all, Vitalik stated that Aya had proposed the idea of transitioning to Chair over a year ago, and he had also clearly mentioned during community debates that the decision-making power regarding EF's leadership changes still belongs to him.

Thus, while this personnel change appears to respond to community issues, it may fundamentally still be an execution of centralized decision-making.

The Market Only Sees Real Results: Ethereum Needs to Find Balance

Clearly, with Wang and Stanczak's appointments, the community both hopes for substantial changes from the new leadership and fears that this is merely a superficial effort under centralization. The intertwining of expectations and doubts creates a complex atmosphere at the beginning of this transformation. Perhaps the community's initial excitement about the new officials will fade, and what they truly desire to see are transparent fund allocations and concrete reform measures. In the coming months, every decision made by the new leadership will be scrutinized.

In the face of the need for transformation, different perspectives will inevitably lead to different thoughts. The Foundation's upper management wants to build a more idealistic ecosystem and future, but dreams always need bread to support them. The crypto market is no longer solely dominated by Ethereum; if EF continues to sell coins while grandstanding about building without addressing the community's real feelings, it will undoubtedly deepen the market's skepticism about Ethereum's so-called "decentralization."

At this juncture, we cannot predict the outcome. But one thing is certain: superficial efforts and grand narratives can no longer sustain Ethereum's true future. Rather than letting the community and holders oscillate between forced construction and helpless complaints, it is better for Ethereum's upper management, such as EF, to seek a true balance between decentralized development and centralized decision-making.