The Ethereum Foundation underwent a major reorganization, dividing its activities into three key areas: developing the core protocol, accelerating technology adoption, and ensuring long-term sustainability of the network. At the same time, co-founder of the project Vitaly Boutherin announced a 40% budget reduction. The organization is shifting from a 15% annual reserve-spending model to a long-term capital management strategy, with plans to reduce operating costs to 5% after 2030.

The reform will affect both technical and operational approaches. Instead of supporting multiple customers, the focus will be on formal verification and AI tools to find vulnerabilities. The Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) division will override experimental research in favor of direct implementation of ready solutions into the protocol. In addition, the Devcon conference will be smaller and the number of external initiatives funded by the fund will decrease - some of which Boutherin intends to support with personal funds.

These changes are being prepared for the launch of a large-scale Strawmap update program. In the long run, Boutherin favors a conservative development vector: after completion of Strawmap, focus will shift to bug fixes and point improvements with high practical value. The co-founder of Ethereum has suggested that Bitcoin, rather than the giant ever-changing code bases, should be used as an example, which would increase the network’s resilience against centralization and reduce the need for huge budgets.