Ethereum Foundation sees another director resign

Hsiao-Wei Wang, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, announced her immediate resignation after returning from a sabbatical. She posted the news on X and has not disclosed her next steps.

In her X post, Wang wrote, “Ethereum has always been bigger than any role.” The message did not give a timeline for a replacement or further details about internal plans.

The foundation has recorded roughly 19 layoffs and departures so far this year. Several exits involved senior executives and core technical contributors. Tomasz Stanczak left a leadership role at the foundation earlier in the year.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded on X, noting that Wang had taken on “the most challenging position in the Ethereum Foundation” alongside Stanczak. Buterin also characterized the foundation as “one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes” in a separate post on the platform.

In March, the Ethereum Foundation published a revised mandate that emphasizes decentralization and describes the group as a steward rather than a central authority. The document includes a goal for Ethereum to pass a “walkaway test,” meaning the protocol and core application layers would continue to function and evolve even if the foundation and current core developers were no longer present.

Buterin has written that many layer-2 networks built on Ethereum have not reached meaningful decentralization and that improvements to the Ethereum mainnet make it a more suitable long-term scaling solution. He added that the original vision for several layer-2s “no longer makes sense.”

Wang’s departure has added to public attention on the foundation’s ability to retain technical staff and leaders and on its governance approach. The foundation’s revised mandate frames its role as reducing dependence on any single organization or group of developers while supporting the broader Ethereum ecosystem.