Ethereum Foundation co-executive director steps out of firing line with board resignation

Today, Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down as co-executive director and board member of the Ethereum Foundation. Her departure now follows at least eight executives leaving the organization over the past five months.

Wang spent eight years with the Ethereum Foundation. She joined the Foundation’s research team in 2017 and got promoted to co-executive director in April 2025. 

She shared that a recent break from work gave her the perspective to reevaluate her priorities. She announced her decision on X, saying she felt it was simply the right time for her to move on.

What’s happening at the Ethereum Foundation?

The resignation now means the EF has lost both the co-executive directors it appointed just over a year ago. Tomasz Stańczak, Wang’s partner, announced his own departure back in February after spending roughly a year in the Foundation. Shortly after, the board replaced him with Bastian Aue as interim co-executive director.

However, the Foundation is facing a serious loss of staff that goes a bit deeper than just management changes. 

Since early 2026, at least eight highly respected, long-term experts have decided to leave. These include Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, Tim Beiko, Barnabé Monnot, Carl Beek, and Julian Ma, who were key researchers and engineers who helped build some of the organization’s most important technology.

Lots of love from the Ethereum community

Wang contributed to several of Ethereum’s most consequential protocol upgrades for most of a decade at the EF. Her work spanned across the Beacon Chain, The Merge, Shapella, and Dencun. She also co-founded ETHTaipei and the Taipei Seminar, helping to establish one of Ethereum’s more active local developer communities.

The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, also praised Wang’s tenure shortly after her announcement. 

He said she was “a steadfast contributor to the Ethereum ecosystem for a decade” and paid homage to her early involvement in Ethereum’s research and consensus work. Buterin also added that she “handled the task skillfully and gracefully” during what he described as one of the EF’s most difficult stretches.

Marius Van Der Wijden, an Ethereum Foundation developer, was a bit more honest. “You were put in an impossible situation and still made it work,” he wrote on X. “You always stood by our side and advocated for what’s best for the Protocol.”

Governance questions persist

The recent staff departures have escalated the debate over whether the Ethereum Foundation is serving its community effectively. 

With ETH trading around $1,709 according to CoinMarketCap, which is much lower than its August 2025 high near $4,950, critics are questioning if the Foundation’s heavy emphasis on long-term research is actually ignoring the need for better token performance and competitive growth.

Buterin countered those criticisms, maintaining that the Foundation’s main responsibility is to ensure the network’s technical security and future integrity rather than prioritizing short-term market gains. 

He said the EF was “one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes” while reminding critics that the Foundation holds roughly 0.16% of circulating ETH.

Wang’s farewell post also echoed that belief, stating that “Ethereum has always been bigger than any one role, any one organization, or any one moment.”