Back
Ethereum Foundation disbands protocol support team overseeing core upgrade coordination

Ethereum Foundation disbands protocol support team overseeing core upgrade coordination

The move followed a wider Ethereum Foundation restructuring that cut 54 jobs, or about 20% of staff, leaving uncertainty over who will handle developer meetings, Forkcast, EIP support and fellowship programs.

ETH
CORE

Fact Check
The primary source is the official EF Protocol Support account (@EFprotocol), which directly announced on July 9, 2026 that 'the EF Protocol Support team has been dissolved.' Multiple crypto news outlets (Odaily, PANews, BlockBeats) independently reported the same, citing this X post and describing the team's coordination role — core developer meetings, network upgrade tracking, EIP support, and protocol operations — exactly as stated in the claim.
Summary

The Ethereum Foundation has dissolved its Protocol Support team after five years of coordinating key parts of Ethereum’s core development process, extending a broader restructuring that recently eliminated 54 positions, or about 20% of the nonprofit’s workforce. Protocol Support had organized All Core Developers meetings, tracked network fork readiness, supported Ethereum Improvement Proposals, maintained the Forkcast upgrade tracker and ran the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship. Mario Havel said he remains at the Ethereum Foundation, but confirmed the rest of the team had been dissolved and that several colleagues lost their roles, while former team lead William Morriss said the restructuring ended his role. Core protocol work continues under the foundation’s new structure and developers are still working on the Glamsterdam upgrade, but the future handling of developer meetings, Forkcast, fellowship programs and EIP support remains unclear.

Terms & Concepts
  • Ethereum Improvement Proposals: Formal proposals used to suggest, discuss and standardize changes to Ethereum.
  • Forkcast: A public platform that tracks Ethereum upgrades, proposed EIPs, testnet launches and mainnet activation plans.
  • Ethereum Protocol Fellowship: A program that trains developers to contribute to Ethereum’s core protocol and connects them with technical teams.