Ethereum Foundation co-director Hsiao-Wei Wang exits

Hsiao-Wei Wang, a co-director at the Ethereum Foundation, is stepping down effective immediately. In a social media post, Wang wrote she had taken a sabbatical and that Bastian Aue had “guided the transition with care and thoughtfulness.” She added, “Over time, I’ve come to feel that this is the right moment for me to step back.” Aue was named interim co-director earlier this year after the February departure of fellow co-director Tomasz Stańczak.

Wang’s exit follows other departures at the Foundation. Dankrad Feist, one of the Foundation’s lead researchers, left last year. At least two long-serving staff members have also departed the organization in recent months.

Feist posted on X that a new organization with at least $1 billion in ETH funding is needed to support Ethereum’s future. He wrote, “The community needs to create an organization that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it,” and added it needs “a leader who is competent and wants to fight.”

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined plans to reshape the Foundation into a “smaller ship” focused on censorship resistance, privacy and security. He has said the group began making large changes in early 2025 to improve ties with ecosystem builders, and that related work continued into 2026 with revised plans for how the Foundation relates to layer-2 networks.

The Foundation updated its treasury policy to provide more detail on when it will sell ETH and to seek acceptable returns on treasury assets. Earlier this year the organization began staking part of its holdings and aims to stake about 70,000 ETH, roughly $119 million at current prices.

On markets, ETH traded around $1,708, down about 1.4% in the last 24 hours and roughly 66% below its all-time high near $4,946 set in August 2025.

A representative from the Ethereum Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.