I just saw a rather thought-provoking personnel change. Ethereum Foundation co-CEO Tomasz Stańczak is stepping down at the end of this month—just 11 months after he took office last March.

You need to understand the background. Back when Stańczak and Hsiao-Wei Wang took over from Aya Miyaguchi, the Ethereum ecosystem was in a period of anxiety. Bitcoin was hitting all-time highs, Solana’s momentum was fierce, and Ethereum was comparatively weak. There was a lot of criticism from the community toward the Foundation—saying it was too “hands-off,” that it had a coordinator-style approach, and that it lacked leadership. Developers complained that the Foundation was disconnected from front-line builders.

So Stańczak was pushed to the forefront. All he had to do was “be a bit more centralized and move faster.” He wasn’t parachuted in; he’s the founder of Nethermind, with technical know-how and entrepreneurial experience. And after taking office, he did bring changes—laying off 19 people, streamlining the structure, accelerating upgrade cycles, and actively communicating Ethereum’s technical roadmap on social media. Vitalik even praised him for improving the efficiency of multiple departments within the Foundation.

But that’s where the problem lies. His resignation statement is especially interesting, with a few lines worth taking a closer look. He said that the Foundation’s “leadership team is increasingly confident in making decisions on their own,” but over time, his “independent execution ability is weakening.” What does that amount to, indirectly? That the space for him to wield power is being squeezed. For someone who’s used to jumping in personally and has a strong entrepreneurial temperament, that clearly doesn’t feel good.

He also mentioned that he wants to go back to being a “hands-on product builder,” focusing on the integration of AI and Ethereum, saying that his mindset right now is pretty much the same as when he founded Nethermind in 2017. In other words, his role at the Foundation no longer excites him as much.

Behind this, in fact, lies the fundamental paradox the Ethereum Foundation has faced since its founding: in theory, Ethereum is decentralized, so the Foundation shouldn’t be a power center; but in reality, it controls a large amount of funding, core developer resources, and influence over the ecosystem’s discourse—objectively playing the role of a “central authority.” Do too much and you get criticized for being centralized; do too little and you get accused of doing nothing. During Miyaguchi’s time, the Foundation leaned toward being a coordinator, and it was criticized as being weak. Stańczak tried to pivot toward execution, improving efficiency—but with power becoming more concentrated internally, it ends up compressing the space for individual initiative.

So what kind of person is Bastian Aue, who will replace him? There’s painfully little public information—his X account was only registered 8 months ago, with almost no posting history. Previously, he handled “work that is difficult to quantify but nonetheless crucial” at the Foundation: helping management decisions, coordinating teams, budget planning, and strategy alignment. This low-key style is an extreme contrast to Stańczak’s prominent entrepreneurial vibe.

His statements after taking over sound more like the language used in the Miyaguchi era: emphasizing principles, emphasizing the cypherpunk spirit, and emphasizing coordination rather than dominance. Does this mean the Foundation is going to roll back from “aggressive execution” to “principled coordination”? It’s still hard to tell.

The timing is also very delicate. On the same day Stańczak announced his departure, ETH briefly dropped below $1,800. If it continues to break below this level, a hard truth will come into view: people who bought ETH eight years ago in January 2018, who have been holding ETH un-staked ever since—after adjusting for inflation, their overall return might well be even worse than simply keeping USD cash in a bank to earn interest.

The bigger macro context is that Ethereum is facing challenges on multiple fronts—competition from high-performance chains like Solana, fragmentation brought by Layer 2, AI narrative windows, and volatility in market sentiment. At this moment, swapping out the core person responsible for execution undeniably adds uncertainty to key documents expected to be released soon, such as the “Lean Ethereum” proposal and development roadmaps.

This organization, which controls one of the most important ecosystems in the crypto world, is still trying to find its footing amid a rapidly changing industry. From the Foundation’s original pursuit of a decentralized vision to its current back-and-forth between efficiency and principles, this path is destined not to be calm. For believers, the real ordeal may not be which side wins in the ideological battle—but rather: how much longer can they hold on?