The Ethereum Foundation said it has appointed long-time ecosystem contributor Pascal Caversaccio to its board, with an initial one-year term in what the foundation described as a voluntary role. The appointment brings the board to four members: Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Swiss legal counsel Patrick Storchenegger, and Caversaccio.
Security researcher pcaversaccio joins the board
Caversaccio, often known in the community as pcaversaccio or pc, is a well-known Ethereum security researcher and a co-founder of SEAL 911, an emergency response organization. SEAL 911 has worked with crypto projects on hack response, vulnerability disclosure, and onchain security incidents, and has built a visible presence across decentralized finance and the broader Ethereum security community.
He was also involved in the foundation’s internal advisory group, Silviculture Society. That group has offered informal guidance around core principles including censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security.
Board framed as a “security council”
According to the Ethereum Foundation, the board is responsible for setting the organization’s long-term strategic vision and making sure management decisions stay aligned with its values. Because the foundation is based in Switzerland, the board also has to ensure its operations comply with Swiss foundation law.
The foundation said the board also acts as a kind of “security council,” with a mandate to protect EF’s core mission and spirit.
In welcoming Caversaccio to the board, Aya Miyaguchi said he brings not only security and privacy expertise, but also strong alignment with censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security, the set of principles referred to as CROPS.
The foundation said those CROPS principles have become a key direction in its internal reorganization in recent months, reflecting an effort to pull governance back toward a clearer value framework.
Author of The Ethereum Cypherpunk Manifesto
Another point of focus around Caversaccio is that he wrote The Ethereum Cypherpunk Manifesto. The text draws from Eric Hughes’ A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto and applies ideas such as privacy, security, anti-censorship, and decentralization to Ethereum’s cultural context.
Some community members have argued that the piece may have influenced the later formation of the CROPS framework.
The appointment has also been read as a renewed signal from EF on privacy and security. The source article said Ethereum has, over a period of time, been dealing with a mix of institutional adoption, regulatory pressure, layer-2 expansion, and governance questions around miner extractable value, or MEV. Against that backdrop, the value priorities of board members are likely to draw closer scrutiny as the foundation tries to keep its role as public infrastructure while holding to cypherpunk ideals.
Caversaccio’s arrival gives security research, privacy advocacy, and cultural commentary a more direct seat at the foundation’s highest governance level.
Reorganization continues across the ecosystem
The board expansion comes during a broader restructuring at the Ethereum Foundation. The Block reported that EF cut about 20% of its staff in June and reorganized around five core research and development units.
In the months before that, several senior executives, co-executive directors, protocol team co-leads, and other senior members had also left. The article said that shift points to EF moving away from a broader ecosystem-center role and toward a position focused on long-term stewardship and core R&D.
At the same time, several Ethereum-linked organizations have emerged to take on work that EF had previously handled or had been expected to handle.
- EthLabs: founded by several former senior EF researchers and focused on independent nonprofit research and development.
- Ethereum Institutional: created to consolidate institutional outreach for banks, asset managers, and large market participants.
- EthSystems: set up as a for-profit company developing privacy and cryptographic tools for institutional use.
With Pascal Caversaccio now on the board, the Ethereum Foundation’s governance overhaul is set to keep revolving around security, privacy, open source, and long-term protocol resilience.