The Ethereum Foundation has officially disbanded its Protocol Support team as part of a broader organizational restructuring that recently eliminated approximately 20% of the nonprofit's workforce. According to reports from crypto.news, the team had been coordinating Ethereum's upgrade processes, developer meetings, and fellowship programs worldwide for over five years. Mario Havel, who worked with Protocol Support for more than five years, confirmed that while he remains at the Ethereum Foundation, the rest of his team has been dissolved, with several colleagues losing their roles. The team announced its dissolution on July 9 via its official X account, just over a year after its creation in 2023 as part of a reorganization.
The disbanded team managed several critical aspects of Ethereum's development infrastructure. As reported by crypto.news, Protocol Support organized All Core Developers meetings where client teams and researchers discuss proposed upgrades, supported breakout calls, and tracked network fork readiness. The team maintained Forkcast, a public platform that tracks Ethereum upgrades, proposed EIPs, testnet launches and mainnet activation plans. Additionally, Protocol Support ran the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship, a program that trained developers seeking to contribute to Ethereum's core protocol and connected participants with client teams, researchers and other technical groups. The team's role was seen as essential for maintaining the stability and direction of Ethereum's core development, particularly as the network transitions through major upgrades.
The team's dissolution follows the Ethereum Foundation's new organizational structure announced on June 23, which cut 54 positions, representing roughly 20% of its workforce after a months-long review of activities and spending. According to crypto.news, the Foundation reorganized its work into five main areas: protocol, access, user, community and institutional layers, with separate groups handling operations and management. The Foundation stated that affected workers would receive severance, career transition support and grants for related expenses. The dissolution of the Protocol Support team does not mean protocol development will halt, but it does raise questions about how coordination and governance will be managed going forward.
While core protocol work continues under the new Ethereum Foundation structure, several support programs face uncertainty following the restructuring. As reported by crypto.news, the Foundation has not publicly detailed where every Protocol Support responsibility will move, leaving the future management of developer meetings, Forkcast, fellowship programs and EIP support unclear. Some developers in the Ethereum ecosystem have expressed concern that the loss of a dedicated coordination team could slow down decision-making around future upgrades, while others see the restructuring as a necessary step to reduce overhead and focus on high-impact work. The foundation has not yet detailed which teams or individuals will absorb the team's former responsibilities, though the move is part of a clear shift toward a leaner, more focused structure that prioritizes efficiency over expansion.
