The Aue Era: Ethereum Foundation's Next Chapter Begins

Back in April 2025, the Ethereum Foundation announced a leadership shuffle. Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak became co-Executive Directors to strengthen the organization anew.

The combination was fruitful.

Since last spring, the reinvigorated EF and Ethereum community made a series of major technical and institutional strides, all while doubling down on L1 building, onchain AI, and the looming quantum specter.

In other words, the state of Ethereum is strong, and the network's future has never been more promising.

And while it takes all kinds of people from all around the world to make Ethereum what it is, it's no secret that some of the momentum here in recent months stemmed from the new tone that Wang and Stańczak set as co-EDs.

That's why all eyes are on the EF again, as the Foundation just announced its next leadership shuffle. The grand question now: will this era be as fruitful as the last one was for the Ethereum community?

What's Changing

Later this month, Stańczak is stepping down as co-ED.

Why? He says he took the reins to catalyze change in the EF, and that's been accomplished. Over the past year, Ethereum's roadmap has crystallized alongside a faster, more confident, and more communicative EF.

“My time at the organization in 2026 would feel more and more like just staying around to pass the baton," he explained.

That said, now Stańczak is moving on to "act more as a core dev" and a "hands-on product builder" from within the Ethereum community. In his stead, the EF has officially appointed Bastian Aue as interim co-ED.

New Bastion

Bastian Aue may be an unknown to those outside the EF, but he's no stranger to those inside. He has worked on the core management team alongside the co-EDs and Josh Stark at the Foundation since (at least) early 2025 and has been woeking with the EF since 2019, we're told.

His online presence is nearly non-existent. You won't find any hot takes of his on Crypto Twitter, or developer talks on YouTube, or easily accessible information on his nationality, work background or basic personal info basically anywhere. His announcement tweet came from an eight-month old X account and was its first tweet. Really, the only readily accessible info on major search platforms was an academic paper he wrote with some notable Ethereum heavyweights.

Still, those who have collaborated with him have glowing things to say:

• Aya Miyaguchi: "There is no one more ready to take on this role than Bastian."
• Danny Ryan: "Bastian is the single most thoughtful and wise person I have ever worked with."
• Franziska Heintel: "His understanding of Ethereum and the bigger picture [...] and his strategic mind will be a great asset for this position."
• Martin Hansen: "I've worked closely with Bastian [...] at the EF and he is the most thoughtful and best strategic thinker I've ever worked with."

And while Aue's new role co-leading the EF may likely require building a slightly more public persona, Aue definitely seems ready to start talking about his vision for the network. On the announcement of his appointment, he wrote:

"The decisions I make will be guided by a principled insistence on the properties of what we're building (censorship resistance, open source, privacy, security). These properties are what make Ethereum relevant and competitive, and they are the foundation of Ethereum's value proposition to the world and everything the world builds on it; just as Ether is the foundational store-of-value that underpins every transaction across it; and just as both are indispensable to the EF's own treasury.

The mandate of the EF is to make sure that real permissionless infrastructure, cypherpunk at its core, is what gets built. Ethereum should outlast us, and it has been our job from the beginning to make sure it is robust enough to do so."

Zooming Out

In an organization stewarding a decentralized movement as important as Ethereum's, operational leadership should be episodic. The Stańczak era was short, but impactful and revitalizing. What will define this Aue era?

It doesn't seem as though Aue was tapped as lead to play the public-facing philosopher. From those close to him, it sounds as though his strategic thinking is his real strength.

As Vitalik recently put it, in a certain sense "crypto has fallen into a dead end," and we need "new strategies" and a "willingness to rethink a great deal from scratch" to advance.

The cypherpunk core must hold even as the field and the strategies evolve. That's the mandate, and we're hopeful that the low-profile Aue can continue to defend these values while holding it competitive – alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang and the rest of the EF leadership team.