We introduced Protocol last June which organized our work around three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX. A lot has happened since then! In this post, we want to share what we accomplished last year, how our thinking has evolved, and where Protocol is headed in 2026.

Platform is a new team inside the EF with one goal: Deliver the strongest possible Ethereum platform, where L1 and L2s are best positioned to support users, apps, and all organizations building on Ethereum. This requires improving the L1 \ L2 relationship, so that we grow as a mutually reinforcing system across each layer. Since the rollup-centric roadmap was first proposed 5 years ago, an ecosystem of chains has grown up around the Ethereum L1. The early mental model of rollups has given way to a network of differentiated L2s, each with distinct and valuable economies, extending Ethereum’s core properties to millions of users. As Ethereum matures, we must do more to deliver a cohesive platform that fully leverages the unique capabilities of Ethereum as a

tl;dr: Ethereum Protocol Studies returns for 2026 with new content tracks in cryptography, lean consensus and zkEVM, plus a new self-paced learning platform. The program kicks off February 23rd. Visit epf.wiki to get started. Ethereum Protocol Studies (EPS) is back. Since launching as a 10-week study group ahead of EPF5, EPS has grown into the primary educational on-ramp for anyone looking to understand Ethereum's core protocol. Hundreds of participants have used the program to go from general Ethereum familiarity to reading specs, navigating client codebases, and contributing to protocol development. This year's program expands in both depth and format. EPS 2026 introduces two new content tracks covering areas of the protocol that are increasingly central to Ethereum's roadmap, alongside a self-paced learning platform that makes the curriculum

Today, we are announcing a transition in the executive leadership team at the Ethereum Foundation. After extensive contributions to the Foundation’s mission and operations, Tomasz Stańczak has decided to step down from his role as Co-Executive Director. The Foundation’s Board has appointed Bastian Aue to serve as interim Co-Executive Director, effective immediately. Tomasz joined the management team during a critical period of growth and maturation for the Foundation. His strategic guidance helped expand our ability to reach out to broad groups of people and teams, and for the EF to understand businesses in the ecosystem more deeply. He also brought a sense of urgency and focus, helped organize EF teams to work more efficiently, and expanded enterprise community development. Through his quick execution, he achieved a remarkable

tl;dr I am stepping down from my co-ED role at the EF at the end of February 2026. Bastian Aue is taking over the co-ED role alongside Hsiao-Wei. The future is bright for builders, for Ethereum, for the EF, and for me.

The EF's Academic Secretariat team is proud to announce the launch of the inaugural PhD Fellowship Program, a pioneering initiative aimed at empowering and expanding the frontiers of Ethereum-related academic research, by supporting Ethereum-related academic work led by PhD students.

During Devconnect Buenos Aires, the Ethereum Foundation and Secureum TrustX brought together Ethereum security practitioners for Trillion Dollar Security Day, a focused event exploring what it would take to securely support a trillion-dollar Ethereum economy. The event brought together around eighty participants from across the Ethereum Security Ecosystem—spanning Infrastructure, Interoperability, Layer 1 & 2, Onchain, Offchain, Privacy, and Wallets—to assess the current security landscape, surface shared challenges, and identify concrete next steps across the stack. The discussions and outputs from this event contribute to the Ethereum Foundation’s ongoing One Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative.

Q4 2025 closed out the year with exciting growth across the ecosystem! Dive into the projects and community initiatives we supported this quarter and see what our grantees have been building: