According to CoinDesk, the Ethereum Foundation (EF), a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the development and research of the Ethereum blockchain, has appointed Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as its new co-executive directors. This announcement was made in a blog post on Saturday, following the recent news of Aya Miyaguchi stepping down from her role as executive director to become the EF's new president. The leadership changes come amid ongoing discussions within the community regarding the EF's influence in the ecosystem. Some community members have criticized the organization and its leadership for the underperformance of Ethereum's token, ether (ETH), compared to other cryptocurrencies. Additionally, Ethereum has seen a decline in attracting new developers, with its competitor Solana surpassing it for the first time.
Wang has been with the Ethereum Foundation since 2017, contributing to research on key concepts such as sharding and playing a significant role in Ethereum's major transition known as "the Merge." Stańczak, on the other hand, is the founder of Nethermind, one of the largest software clients operating on the Ethereum blockchain. The Foundation emphasized in their blog post that the Ethereum ecosystem faces the challenge of transitioning from an early-stage project catering to a small group of enthusiasts to becoming a robust, permissionless, and censorship-resistant base layer for global finance and software.
Further changes within the Ethereum community include former EF researcher Danny Ryan joining Etherealize, a new initiative aimed at integrating Ethereum with Wall Street. Etherealize was founded by ex-banker Vivek Raman, who previously stated that the project's goal is to bridge the gap between Ethereum and financial institutions by educating them and promoting ETH as a credible crypto asset. In a post shared on X, Ryan expressed his intention to "build a new Ethereum institution with Real World Ethereum as its north star," highlighting the readiness of the world to embrace blockchain technology and the commitment to undertake the necessary efforts to facilitate this transition.