Hsiao-Wei Wang has announced she will be leaving the Ethereum Foundation, having served as co-executive director since March 2025. Wang’s departure follows a series of other high-profile departures, notably including Tomasz Stańczak, who stepped down as co-ED in February. 

Wang joined the EF Research team in mid-2017 as a core Layer 1 researcher, focusing on areas like sharding proofs-of-concept, consensus mechanisms, and eventually helping design the Beacon Chain that supported Ethereum’s major shift to proof-of-stake. 

Last year, amid an organizational shakeup of the Ethereum Foundation, Wang was promoted to co-executive director alongside Stańczak. She later took over as primary ED to work with interim co-Executive Director Bastian Aue, before going on sabbatical. 

"After my sabbatical, I have decided to step down as co-executive director and board member of the Ethereum Foundation, effective today," Wang announced on Thursday. "Serving as EF co-executive director let me see the bigger picture of how the Ethereum community collaborates. I'm proud of what we've accomplished, not only at the EF, but across the builders, researchers, educators, node operators, validators, users, and many other contributors who have helped build, maintain, secure, and use the infrastructure and applications on top of it."

Several high-profile researchers and leaders have left the EF in recent months, including two of three heads of the Protocol cluster, Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko, with the remaining Protocol co-lead, Alex Stokes, announcing a sabbatical. Josh Stark resigned in March after seven years.

Earlier this year, the EF published a mandate stating it will focus on censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security (CROPs), which some people interpreted as devaluing Ethereum’s need to remain competitive within the corporate world. The EF also reportedly asked staff to sign a loyalty pledge related to the mandate and CROPs, which generated significant backlash. 

Ethereum co-founder and Consensys CEO Joe Lubin told The Block there is a plan in the works to further divide the Ethereum Foundation to focus on specific tracks. He noted plans include three spinout groups to focus on core protocol work, usability and scalability and institutional outreach. "The EF will focus on the CROPs components," Lubin said. 

“[Wang] has been a steadfast contributor to the Ethereum ecosystem for a decade,” Vitalik Buterin said on X on Thursday. “Last year she, along with [Stanczak], voluntarily took on the burden of what is perhaps the most challenging position in the Ethereum Foundation, at one of the most challenging times for Ethereum - and realistically, a challenging time for all of humanity."

"She handled the task skillfully and gracefully, and has constantly strived to find and insist on outcomes that are right both for the Ethereum protocol and for the human beings that build and maintain it. I look forward to her next adventures," Buterin added.