Ethereum Foundation Slashes 20% Workforce Amid ETH Price Crash

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has announced that it has reduced its workforce by about 20%. They attribute the move to a major restructuring that will streamline operations and re-allocate resources to the organization’s long-term development targets.

Ethereum Foundation Cuts Workforce

It follows a steep drop in Ethereum price to around $1,650 as the overall crypto market sold off amidst heavy liquidations among digital assets.

The Ethereum Foundation wrote on X, “Today, the EF is changing shape, concluding a months-long process of reorganization as part of the implementation of the Mandate and the Treasury Management Policy.”

The restructuring puts the organization in a better position to address future priorities, but recognizes the size of the workforce reduction, the organization said. “We come out of this process with the structure, activities, and people necessary for execution on the critical tasks ahead of us, but also with 54 fewer colleagues, roughly 20% of the EF,” the foundation stated.

The EF restructures itself into five main layers: protocol, access, user, community and institutional. There will also be separate groups for operations and management functions.

The protocol layer will continue to serve the foundation to develop the core technology of Ethereum. It aims to reaffirm values like censorship resistance, privacy, security, and decentralization are safeguarded, the foundation said. Other divisions will be dedicated to the user experience, ecosystem involvement, outreach and adoption by institutions.

Steps Toward Affected Employees

The cuts to staff were part of the foundation’s strategy to match resources with its focus, according to the foundation. It added, “These decisions were hard, but they are necessary. We must be resourced and organized in a way that allows us to focus on the critical work that only EF can, and therefore must, do in the coming years, without excessive disruption from short-term market movements.”

Severance and transition assistance will be provided to employees impacted by layoffs. The foundation will provide career transition support to departing staff to explore new opportunities within the Ethereum ecosystem and grants to help cover career transition costs. Recently, Coinbase also announced laying off 14% of its employees.

Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation added that more details on the new organizational structure and plans for the future will be coming out in the coming weeks and months.