Aya Miyaguchi, president of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), has publicly defended the nonprofit’s recent pivot to a tighter, more mission-driven mandate — framing it as a necessary reset after internal debates grew increasingly fraught and the Foundation was pulled in too many directions.
Miyaguchi’s comments, posted on X shortly after Vitalik Buterin shared his own take on the Foundation’s trajectory, come at a delicate moment for Ethereum’s core nonprofit. The EF is deliberately slimming down its remit while the wider ecosystem argues over governance, technical priorities and a string of high-profile departures.
A structural reset, not a single fight
Miyaguchi said the new mandate was issued by the board but originated from a proposal she put forward late last year. She stressed the change was prompted not by one dispute but by a structural problem: as EF grew, “more and more versions of ‘what EF should be’ began pulling at the core of the organization from every direction.” Technical debates, she wrote, had at times become political and personal — and the attempt to be everything to everyone risked delivering nothing.
She leaned into a long-standing, delicate tension in Ethereum’s culture: the network has relied on the Foundation for research funding, coordination and stewardship, but it has also resisted centralization around any single institution. Miyaguchi argued that EF’s narrowing role is not a retreat from responsibility but evidence of Ethereum’s maturation. “EF is one of many nodes in Ethereum,” she said, adding that while EF was essential in the early years, it was not meant to remain the network’s command center indefinitely.
A history of decentralizing power
Miyaguchi linked the shift to her own crypto background — in the space since 2012 and joining Kraken in 2013 around the time of the Mt. Gox collapse, which she says she helped manage. When she became executive director in 2018, her explicit goal was to help Ethereum grow beyond the Foundation itself.
She highlighted EF’s track record of seeding independence: incubating and launching projects such as Uniswap and ENS, supporting ETHGlobal and hackathons, and “funding the funders” through programs like Gitcoin and Moloch. The guiding question, she said, was always “how does this stand on its own, without us?”
By design, that strategy has reduced EF’s footprint: the Foundation now holds less than 0.2% of all ETH and has a narrower mandate focused on preserving and accelerating the properties that make Ethereum “uniquely valuable, competitive, and worth building on.” Miyaguchi invoked the acronym CROPS and framed the mission around “inalienable user self-sovereignty and self-sovereign coordination,” while stressing EF will coordinate with allies rather than act alone.
On adoption and personnel changes
Pushing back on the idea that a sharper EF equals neglect of adoption, Miyaguchi said adoption — including by institutions — remains part of EF’s work, but only in ways aligned with its core mission.
Her remarks arrive amid a notable exodus of senior contributors in 2026, including researchers and ecosystem figures such as Carl Beekhuizen, Julian Ma, Barnabé Monnot, Tim Beiko, Trent Van Epps, Josh Stark and former co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak. That turnover has amplified scrutiny over whether the restructuring signals healthy decentralization or internal strain — or both.
Miyaguchi acknowledged the personnel implications: “As EF becomes more focused and more opinionated, the team naturally becomes smaller and more concentrated. That is part of the choice.” She added that new leaders are stepping into the mission and that management will publish more details on the new structure and strategy in the coming weeks.
Buterin, mandate and market
Buterin’s May 24 post framed the Foundation as still in transition, underscoring that he does not hold special power over the board and noting another leader is overseeing much of the current changes. He too described a leaner, less central EF focused on preserving Ethereum’s long-term properties.
At press time, ETH traded at $1,986.
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