The Ethereum Foundation has lost two prominent figures within a single week. Josh Stark said on April 17 that he is leaving, while Trent Van Epps confirmed a day earlier that he had stepped down the previous Friday. Add in Tomasz Stańczak’s departure in February 2026, and the nonprofit at the center of Ethereum’s long-term stewardship now appears to have only one publicly visible management member left: co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang.
Josh Stark exits after five years at the foundation
In a post on X, Stark said he was ending a roughly five-year run at the Ethereum Foundation. He said he has no concrete next step planned and wants to spend time with family and friends. He also reflected on Ethereum’s history, writing that many once believed Ethereum would never launch, DeFi would never work, and Proof of Stake would never arrive, yet all of those milestones were eventually reached.
According to the report, Stark joined the foundation in 2019 through the special projects team, then moved across operations, strategy, and public communications. During that period, he worked closely with Aya Miyaguchi and Vitalik Buterin. He was also one of only four people listed in management on the organization chart. The report said he made the decision to leave in early March and is expected to finish the handover by the end of April.
Trent Van Epps shifts focus to Protocol Guild
One day before Stark’s announcement, Trent Van Epps also posted on X to confirm that he had already resigned. He said the past five years involved work tied to network upgrades and funding support, and he spoke positively about the team he worked with.
Van Epps added that, as long as funding allows, he plans to stay involved with Protocol Guild, the initiative he co-founded to support Ethereum core developers. He said that work will become his full-time focus.
Leadership departures follow Buterin’s 2025 reorganization push
The departures come after Vitalik Buterin launched a broad organizational overhaul in 2025. Citing CoinTelegraph, the report said the move came as the Ethereum Foundation faced community criticism over its long-term direction. Buterin’s response included bringing in new people, pushing for greater decentralization, speeding up transaction processing, and drawing a clearer line around what the foundation would and would not do.
He said at the time that the Ethereum Foundation would not engage in ideological disputes, would not lobby the U.S. Congress, and would not speak for vested interests. In March 2025, the foundation introduced a new leadership structure with Hsiao-Wei Wang and Nethermind CEO Tomasz Stańczak as co-executive directors. Less than a year later, Stańczak had already left in February 2026.
From four management members to almost one
The report described Stark’s exit as the most significant departure since Buterin began the reorganization. Counting Stańczak’s exit and Van Epps’ resignation, the foundation’s original four-person management group has been nearly cleared out within a matter of months, leaving Wang as the only publicly visible remaining member.
Whether that pace of turnover affects the foundation’s public credibility, internal decision continuity, or communication with Ethereum’s core developer community remains an open question.