Ethereum Foundation has dissolved its Protocol Support team, a unit responsible for coordinating core Ethereum development activities including developer meetings, network upgrade tracking, and EIP management, the foundation announced. The decision follows Vitalik Buterin's earlier statement that the foundation would implement a 40% budget reduction as part of a broader organizational restructuring.
The disbanded team had overseen critical infrastructure functions beyond protocol development itself. Its responsibilities encompassed the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship grant program, educational initiatives, community engagement, and infrastructure support that facilitated coordination among the network's decentralized developer ecosystem. The team's dissolution represents a significant operational shift for the foundation's governance structure.
The move signals a strategic recalibration at the foundation as it contends with resource constraints. By consolidating or eliminating support functions, the EF appears to be redirecting focus toward core protocol research and development while scaling back administrative and coordination layers. The impact on Ethereum's ongoing development roadmap—including consensus layer upgrades and execution improvements—remains unclear, though the protocol's decentralized developer structure may partially mitigate direct operational disruption.