tl;dr
I’m stepping down from my co-ED function on the EF on the finish of February 2026. Bastian Aue is taking on the co-ED function alongside Hsiao-Wei. The longer term is brilliant 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 by no means been given an excessive amount of certainty. The conviction about Ethereum that comes from a deep understanding of its expertise, its governance, its which 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 seems like. We’re witnessing the transition of monetary infrastructure to Ethereum, and the emergence of automated, agentic interactions. Very quickly, we’ll witness robots, new types of governance, and 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 usually are not doing badly and can hopefully do higher and higher. Open-source agentic staff have gotten essentially the most thrilling toys for builders and creators since early Ethereum. Essential 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 very best of the privateness builders and safety consultants making certain that the community helps folks 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, expertise, and jurisdiction danger. I’m wanting ahead to Ethereum displaying up on the monetary facilities of the world, with the most important institutional Ethereum convention coming to New York this yr.
With the development of AI and progressing integration into the world monetary programs, there has hardly ever been a extra thrilling time to construct on Ethereum.
Way forward for the EF
It has been necessary for me, during the last yr, to current the function of the EF co-ED as impactful and fascinating, a place the place one could make a significant distinction by empowering folks of extraordinary expertise and dedication, each on the EF and extra broadly within the Ethereum ecosystem.
We now have managed to ship change on the EF quick; we’ve nice expertise that learns shortly and has an important course for 2026. The co-ED place was extraordinarily rewarding, strategically difficult, and introduced me loads of pleasure and inspiration. The help that I obtained from the neighborhood was great. I’m proud of the present state of issues; the roadmap is clearer; the objectives are set; the leaders on the EF grew extra assured about making choices by themselves and proudly owning extra. A very powerful objectives: accelerating decision-making, talking to youthful generations, bringing new pleasure to the builders’ neighborhood, speaking extra brazenly 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 constantly bettering. Individuals who delivered these adjustments proceed engaged on Ethereum. An increasing number of folks see ETH clearly as a retailer of worth. Among the adjustments can solely occur without warning. Whereas my skill 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 cross the baton. The EF is in a wholesome state of a company that may steadiness long-term objectives and the necessity for change. The EF is exclusive, removed from boring, very resilient, and led by very smart folks.
The start of 2026 makes me very excited concerning the function 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 growth roadmap, highlighting the long-term path ahead for the Ethereum protocol that the EF Protocol group 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 help of coordination groups from the EF, core devs are effectively positioned to maintain delivery important enhancements on time.
We now have a really clear quantum technique, with the highest quantum safety researchers finalizing the specs and the very best engineers engaged on implementations. Put up-quantum safety has a transparent place within the EF Protocol roadmap.
We now have a devoted decentralized AI group delivering requirements, experiments, and options for the agentic economic system ([1], [2]).
We now have the ecosystem growth EcoDev group specializing in the success of founders, establishments, and governments constructing on Ethereum. We now have a devoted International Coverage Help group. We’re automating an increasing number of of our efforts by utilizing AI for coordination. Communication concerning the roadmaps, use instances, and purposes is way clearer, with incredible work from the groups at ethereum.org and forkcast.org.
One of many main dialogue factors and challenges for the final yr was across the L1–L2 relationship. Vitalik’s latest posts search to offer extra readability concerning the state of affairs that has been noticed for a very long time. L2s prolong or construct on prime of Ethereum with varied safety and decentralization trade-offs. L2s select to construct their worth proposition by selecting between dangers and improved UX throughout parameters similar to scaling, decentralization, historic state availability, privateness, and so on. We now have created the Platform group 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 yr with clearer visions and a extra centered strategy. Not too long ago, main Ethereum rollups have began an increasing number of constantly overtaking all AltL1s within the stablecoin and TPS metrics, a development 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 initially of 2026, Vitalik set a tone for respecting the significance of what’s basic to the EF’s existence. The work of PSE and Kohaku focuses these days on utilized privateness. The Protocol group 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 neighborhood has deserved this occasion for years, and I’m very proud that the group brings Devcon to India in 2026.
In 2026, the EF can be significantly better at talking to the brand new era of builders. The work of the brand new voices on the EF, and all of the gifted folks working with founders and media behind the scenes exhibits the brand new power on the EF and it’ll maintain the neighborhood excited in 2026, particularly with the motion round agentic AI and Ethereum turning into its go-to belief infrastructure.
The Ethereum In all places efforts already help the hubs in San Francisco, Lagos, London, Berlin, and Hong Kong. The Educational Secretariat group plans many new college occasions this yr; 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 group on the EF will publish a weblog put up with their plans and roadmap. I’m extraordinarily excited concerning the expertise that we dropped at the EF to assist with the DeFi coordination. There might be no higher folks to assist us help the DeFi ecosystem.
Hsiao-Wei stays and continues the trail. Bastian Aue takes on an expanded management function alongside Hsiao-Wei. No matter course they take, they may have the help of the very best expertise in crypto. Your complete EcoDev transformation on the builders, founders, and institutional aspect was dropped at the EF by James Smith, who continues on his mission. Coverage help and long-term work proceed below 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 most important communication adjustments on social media that occurred in 2025. Engineers and the researchers within the Protocol cluster work extra intently collectively and confidently set roadmaps for the long run and sort out 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 help in connecting with folks on the EF or discussing the imaginative and prescient and technique of Ethereum. I’ll stay out there for the EF management, ought to they ever really feel they want recommendation (though I’m positive that most of the time I’ve obtained helpful recommendation from them previously). I plan to at all times put strain on the Ethereum ecosystem to maneuver at tempo.
I’ll 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 growth 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} large change was taking place. I knew that Ethereum was going to interchange the monetary programs and I knew that I had an necessary expertise within the monetary trade to make it extra of an evolution somewhat than a revolution. I do know now that agentic programs and AI-assisted discovery are reshaping the world. I’m effectively conscious of the impermanence and even uselessness of among the agentic concepts, however it’s the playful experimentation that outlined a lot of the early Ethereum innovation.
I plan to proceed working straight with founders in frontier tech and Ethereum. I need to see and help the belief of the imaginative and prescient that I’ve talked about during the last years. It is among the most fun instances to be a builder on Ethereum.
Thank You
It’s unimaginable to checklist everybody who helped me, the EF, and Ethereum in 2025. Throughout my time on the EF, I visited over 20 nations for work and spent a lot time with native communities. I met 1000’s of individuals: builders, financiers, educators, policymakers, creators, researchers, lecturers. I beloved all of the phrases of help, 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 want to thank Hsiao-Wei and the administration group for transferring quick collectively. Large due to Bastian Aue, Josh Stark, and Tju Liang for bringing a lot emotional intelligence and facilitating considerate discussions when going through essentially the most troublesome 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.
Big due to a whole lot 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 must be. Thanks a lot; I’d by no means have discovered the precise paths with out you.
Thanks to each single particular person on the EF for executing in your beliefs and skills.
—
Tomasz