Ethereum Foundation Exodus Deepens With at Least Eight Senior Departures in 2026

The Ethereum Foundation lost two more researchers Monday when Carl Beek and Julian Ma announced their departures on X, extending a wave of senior exits that has now reached at least eight in 2026, with five of those in May alone.

Beek spent seven years at the EF, contributing to the early design of the Beacon Chain and the KZG ceremony. His last day is May 29. He said he recently welcomed a child and plans to spend time with family before deciding what comes next. “To every researcher, core dev, EFer, and community member, whether we worked together closely or not: thank you,” Beek wrote.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Ma spent roughly four years on the protocol R&D team. His contributions include co-authoring FOCIL (EIP-7805), a proposal designed to strengthen censorship resistance by preventing proposer seats from being traded, and leading the rollout of the Fast Confirmation Rule, which dropped bridging time between Ethereum L1 and L2s to 13 seconds. Ma said his role shifted over time from research into product and growth work, and he wants to continue in that direction outside the foundation.

A third departure, senior solutions architect Pablo Voorvaart, also announced Monday that he was leaving after four years across the Devcon and Use Case Lab teams to pursue entrepreneurship. Previously founder of Streameth, Voorvaart said he wants to focus on “creating new products.”

The full departure roster since co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak stepped down in February now includes Josh Stark (operations and writing lead, March), Trent Van Epps (Protocol Guild organizer), Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko (Protocol cluster), Alex Stokes (Protocol cluster, now on sabbatical), Beek, and Ma. The Protocol cluster, the team responsible for base-layer research and coordination, has now lost contributors across every layer it covers.

The exodus has fueled a debate on X about what is happening inside the foundation. “How many not public? And why?” asked DeFi researcher Ignas. But not everyone reads the departures as dysfunction. Community commentator Ryan Berckmans argued the exits reflect a deliberate transition rather than a crisis, writing that “the time for new blood is here” and that Vitalik Buterin’s 2025 reorganization, which pushed execution outward to independent client teams and recast the EF as a focused research and grants hub, is working as designed.

That reorganization is codified in the CROPS mandate the EF published in March, which explicitly positions the foundation as a temporary steward rather than a permanent governing body. Under that framing, researchers concluding their work has a better home outside the EF is the intended outcome, not a failure mode. Whether the community finds that reassuring will depend on whether the upgrade pipeline, including Glamsterdam this year and Hegotá next, ships on time without the departing talent.