tl;dr
I’m stepping down from my co-ED position on the EF on the finish of February 2026. Bastian Aue is taking on the co-ED position alongside Hsiao-Wei. The long run is shiny for builders, for Ethereum, for the EF, and for me.
Way forward for Ethereum
As competing concepts emerge and fail and the markets bounce up and down, we’ve got by no means been given an excessive amount of certainty. The conviction about Ethereum that comes from a deep understanding of its know-how, its governance, its that means for the long run, and the values we share will at all times make us converge intermittently, even when our curiosities drive our explorations very removed from the canonical paths.
For a very long time, I’ve been exploring what the way forward for Ethereum appears to be like like. We’re witnessing the transition of monetary infrastructure to Ethereumand the emergence of automated, agentic interactions. Very quickly, we are going to witness robots, new types of governanceand AI healthcare and training. I imagine that Ethereum will stay a pure infrastructure layer for coordination of all these applied sciences interacting.
Open-source LLM fashions aren’t doing badly and can hopefully do higher and higher. Open-source agentic employees have gotten probably the most thrilling toys for builders and creators since early Ethereum. Vital privateness and safety questions emerge across the new paradigms; the world is altering quick, and among the many adjustments, Ethereum is turning into the underlying infrastructure for verification and monetary transactions. The cypherpunk ethos of Ethereum stays intact, with the perfect of the privateness builders and safety consultants making certain that the community helps individuals protect privateness and entry to important infrastructure.
Ethereum emerged because the clear institutional choice in 2025. Dashboards present Ethereum’s rising market share in stablecoins and RWA exercise. Ethereum is seen because the lowest-risk chain. Credible neutrality, decentralization, and no downtime since genesis all current establishments with an infrastructure with uniquely low counterparty, know-how, and jurisdiction threat. I’m wanting ahead to Ethereum exhibiting up on the monetary facilities of the world, with the key institutional Ethereum convention coming to New York this 12 months.
With the development of AI and progressing integration into the world monetary techniques, there has not often been a extra thrilling time to construct on Ethereum.
Way forward for the EF
It has been essential for me, over the past 12 months, to current the position of the EF co-ED as impactful and fascinating, a place the place one could make a significant distinction by empowering individuals of extraordinary expertise and dedication, each on the EF and extra broadly within the Ethereum ecosystem.
We’ve managed to ship change on the EF quick; we’ve got nice expertise that learns rapidly and has an excellent path for 2026. The co-ED place was extraordinarily rewarding, strategically difficult, and introduced me numerous pleasure and inspiration. The assist that I obtained from the group was large. I’m pleased with the present state of issues; the roadmap is clearer; the targets are set; the leaders on the EF grew extra assured about making choices by themselves and proudly owning extra. Crucial targets: accelerating decision-making, talking to youthful generations, bringing new pleasure to the builders’ group, speaking extra overtly on social media and podcasts, turning into extra open to establishments, supporting founders, organising treasury insurance policies, strengthening native hubs and communities, introducing compensation coverage, bringing extra readability to the L1–L2 relationship, creating extra inside and exterior transparency round budgets and construction have both been accomplished or are persistently bettering. Individuals who delivered these adjustments proceed engaged on Ethereum. An increasing number of individuals see ETH clearly as a retailer of worth. Among the adjustments can solely occur without warning. Whereas my capability to execute independently on the EF diminishes over time, my time on the group in 2026 would really feel an increasing number of like simply staying round to go the baton. The EF is in a wholesome state of a company that may steadiness long-term targets and the necessity for change. The EF is exclusive, removed from boring, very resilient, and led by extremely smart individuals.
The start of 2026 makes me very excited in regards to the position the EF can play in the way forward for Ethereum. Very quickly, we plan to launch a proposal for a merged LEAN Ethereum and core improvement roadmap, highlighting the long-term path ahead for the Ethereum protocol that the EF Protocol workforce believes in. It ought to present clear steerage and a setup for coordination in 2026 and past. After delivering two community upgrades in 2025 and with the assist of coordination groups from the EF, core devs are nicely positioned to maintain delivery important enhancements on time.
We’ve a really clear quantum techniquewith the highest quantum safety researchers finalizing the specs and the perfect engineers engaged on implementations. Publish-quantum safety has a transparent place within the EF Protocol roadmap.
We’ve a devoted decentralized AI workforce delivering requirements, experiments, and options for the agentic financial system ([1], [2]).
We’ve the ecosystem improvement EcoDev workforce specializing in the success of founders, establishments, and governments constructing on Ethereum. We’ve a devoted World Coverage Assist workforce. We’re automating an increasing number of of our efforts by utilizing AI for coordination. Communication in regards to the roadmaps, use circumstances, and purposes is far clearer, with improbable work from the groups at ethereum.org and forkcast.org.
One of many main dialogue factors and challenges for the final 12 months was across the L1–L2 relationship. Vitalik’s current posts search to supply extra readability in regards to the scenario that has been noticed for a very long time. L2s lengthen or construct on prime of Ethereum with numerous safety and decentralization trade-offs. L2s select to construct their worth proposition by selecting between dangers and improved UX throughout parameters comparable to scaling, decentralization, historic state availability, privateness, and many others. We’ve created the Platform workforce on the EF and introduced over 20 Ethereum L2s to debate the way forward for scaling, differentiation, and interoperability on the Community College. Groups constructing primarily based rollups, native rollups, and synchronous composability are beginning this 12 months with clearer visions and a extra centered strategy. Just lately, main Ethereum rollups have began an increasing number of persistently overtaking all AltL1s within the stablecoin and TPS metrics, a pattern that I’m satisfied will proceed.
Whereas we turned extra open to purposes and institutional area, we remained centered round cypherpunk values with teams like Vitalik’s Silviculture Society advising senior leaders on rising dangers and warning towards false steps. With a sequence of tweets originally of 2026, Vitalik set a tone for respecting the significance of what’s elementary to the EF’s existence. The work of PSE and Kohaku focuses these days on utilized privateness. The Protocol workforce dedicates extra effort than ever to safety and censorship resistance with FOCIL and the Trillion Greenback Safety program.
I’m extraordinarily enthusiastic about Devcon Mumbai bringing the world’s blockchain thought leaders and founders to work collectively on Ethereum. The Indian group has deserved this occasion for years, and I’m very proud that the workforce brings Devcon to India in 2026.
In 2026, the EF can also be significantly better at talking to the brand new technology of builders. The work of the brand new voices on the EF, and all of the proficient individuals working with founders and media behind the scenes exhibits the brand new vitality on the EF and it’ll maintain the group excited in 2026, particularly with the motion round agentic AI and Ethereum turning into its go-to belief infrastructure.
The Ethereum In every single place efforts already assist the hubs in San Francisco, Lagos, London, Berlin, and Hong Kong. The Tutorial Secretariat workforce plans many new college occasions this 12 months; the pop-up cities concept maintains momentum and the scene will get higher and higher organized; new builders and long-term thought leaders meet and construct around the globe.
Within the coming weeks, the DeFi coordination workforce on the EF will publish a weblog publish with their plans and roadmap. I’m extraordinarily excited in regards to the expertise that we dropped at the EF to assist with the DeFi coordination. There could possibly be no higher individuals to assist us assist the DeFi ecosystem.
Hsiao-Wei stays and continues the trail. Bastian Aue takes on an expanded management position alongside Hsiao-Wei. No matter path they take, they may have the assist of the perfect expertise in crypto. Your entire EcoDev transformation on the builders, founders, and institutional facet was dropped at the EF by James Smith, who continues on his mission. Coverage assist and long-term work proceed underneath the good management of Bastian Aue and Tju Liang. Josh Stark has an distinctive expertise for executing operational adjustments quick and in addition led all the key communication adjustments on social media that occurred in 2025. Engineers and the researchers within the Protocol cluster work extra carefully collectively and confidently set roadmaps for the long run and deal with the hardest technological challenges. The EF is the place the place issues transfer quick, and adjustments can occur inside days or even weeks.
My future
My DMs keep open for all of you who want assist in connecting with individuals on the EF or discussing the imaginative and prescient and technique of Ethereum. I’ll stay obtainable for the EF management, ought to they ever really feel they want recommendation (though I’m certain that as a rule I’ve obtained invaluable recommendation from them prior to now). I plan to at all times put stress on the Ethereum ecosystem to maneuver at tempo.
I could proceed touring and dealing with native communities and serving to companies construct on Ethereum. I plan to behave extra as a core dev, a hands-on product builder and amongst different issues, work on the agentic core improvement and agentic governance. I really feel a lot the identical as I felt once I began Nethermind in 2017. I felt very strongly on the time {that a} massive change was taking place. I knew that Ethereum was going to interchange the monetary techniques and I knew that I had an essential expertise within the monetary business to make it extra of an evolution moderately than a revolution. I do know now that agentic techniques and AI-assisted discovery are reshaping the world. I’m nicely conscious of the impermanence and even uselessness of a number of the agentic concepts, however it’s the playful experimentation that outlined a lot of the early Ethereum innovation.
I plan to proceed working instantly with founders in frontier tech and Ethereum. I wish to see and assist the conclusion of the imaginative and prescient that I’ve talked about over the past years. It is without doubt one of the most enjoyable instances to be a builder on Ethereum.
Thank You
It’s inconceivable to listing everybody who helped me, the EF, and Ethereum in 2025. Throughout my time on the EF, I visited over 20 international locations for work and spent a lot time with native communities. I met 1000’s of individuals: builders, financiers, educators, policymakers, creators, researchers, lecturers. I cherished all of the phrases of assist, robust questions, and critique coming from you.
I’d like to wholeheartedly thank the EF board for taking the daring step of bringing me on to affix Hsiao-Wei as a co-ED. I wish to thank Hsiao-Wei and the administration workforce for shifting quick collectively. Large because of Bastian Aue, Josh Stark, and Tju Liang for bringing a lot emotional intelligence and facilitating considerate discussions when going through probably the most tough issues. Thanks, Joe Schweitzer, for reviewing numerous podcasts and serving to us all attain a broad viewers when speaking about the way forward for Ethereum.
Enormous because of a whole bunch of Ethereum leaders reaching out to me in March and April 2025, telling me about each single factor that wanted consideration and sharing their views on what the EF technique needs to be. Thanks a lot; I’d by no means have discovered the best paths with out you.
Thanks to each single individual on the EF for executing in your beliefs and skills.
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Tomasz
