The Protocol team at the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has changed its leadership. Key developers Barnabe Monnot and Tim Beiko are leaving the organization, while Alex Stokes is taking a creative break.
The new co-leaders of the division are:
- Will Corcoran — research coordinator (zkVM, post-quantum consensus);
- Kev Vedderburn — head of the zkEVM team;
- Fredrik — head of protocol security.
According to Corcoran, the team will focus on preparing updates for Glamsterdam and Hegota. Developers plan to increase the gas limit to 200 million and implement a mechanism to separate the proposer and builder of blocks. Future upgrades will prioritize the network's resilience against censorship.
This reorganization comes amid a series of layoffs at EF. Last month, Josh Stark left the foundation, and in February, co-executive director Tomas Stanczak departed. Some specialists have transitioned to external projects, including the Tempo network.
Monnot, who worked at EF for over six years, explained his departure as a desire to focus on the product side of Ethereum and enhance user experience.
The Protocol division is responsible for the design, security, and scalability of the network's base layer. The team also coordinates AllCoreDevs developer meetings and conducts research in cryptography.
In March, Gnosis and Zisk, with support from EF, created a framework to unify the fragmented ecosystem of layer two networks.
In April, Gnosis co-founder Frederike Ernst announced that not only L2 solutions could join the project.