Following leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the organization has shifted its focus to user experience (UX) and Layer 1 L1 scaling issues. This was stated by its co-director, Tomasz Stańczak.
Our discussions about the Layer 1 scaling roadmap have been extensive, and the feedback so far suggests that the community appreciates our ambition. Turning that ambition into reality now depends on the focus of the core development teams and researchers.
Following the recent…
— Tomasz K. Stańczak (@tkstanczak) April 20, 2025
According to him, the aim of these changes is to provide Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin with more time for research and exploration, rather than dealing with daily tasks and crisis management.
On March 1, Xiao-Wei Wang and Stańczak became the new co-executive directors of EF. The former has worked with the organization for seven years as a researcher and contributed to the development of the Beacon Chain. The latter is the founder of the Nethermind project and one of the early members of the Flashbots team.
On February 25, former EF CEO Aya Miyaguchi announced her transition to the role of president.
Stańczak noted that Buterin’s recent posts have advanced promising directions and helped realign the community around the core values of the organization.
“Every time Vitalik shares ideas or points a direction, he accelerates major long-term breakthroughs,” the specialist wrote.
On April 11, Ethereum’s co-founder introduced a privacy roadmap for the network. In it, Buterin proposed creating default built-in features that anonymize user transactions.
On April 20, the developer published his thoughts on transitioning the Ethereum Virtual Machine to an open RISC-V architecture. The goal is to enhance the efficiency and speed of the network’s execution layer.
Stańczak noted that while Buterin’s proposals “will always carry weight,” they should initiate discussions and stimulate progress in various research areas. According to the co-leader, the community can either refine or reject these ideas.
According to Stańczak, the Ethereum Foundation will shift its focus to “near-term” goals, including addressing UX and scaling issues in upcoming protocol updates Pectra, Fusaka, and Glamsterdam.
Previously, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams urged Ethereum developers not to change the course of recent years and to prioritize Layer 2 networks.
Earlier in February, the Ethereum team discussed accelerating network hard forks. However, the Pectra upgrade was later postponed to May 7.