Aya Miyaguchi, who has been with the Ethereum Foundation (EF) for seven years as Executive Director, has now stepped into the role of President . This leadership shift comes at a crucial time for Ethereum , with ongoing technical challenges and internal debates within the community. On February 25, Miyaguchi announced her transition, stating that her new role will allow her to focus more on institutional relationships and Ethereum’s cultural expansion. In a recent blog post, she reflected on Ethereum’s growth, recalling how the ecosystem was once much smaller, with fewer contributors shaping the network. She highlighted Ethereum’s transformation into a decentralized and globally diverse ecosystem. Developers, Layer 2 teams, application builders, and local communities are now key to Ethereum’s evolution, strengthening its resilience and ensuring its decentralized future. “This mix of technical and social innovation isn’t just a feature of Ethereum—it’s why it continues to grow,” Miyaguchi stated. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, praised Miyaguchi’s leadership, crediting her with helping the foundation maintain its mission and cultural stability. He noted that under her guidance, Ethereum successfully executed upgrades, organized major developer conferences like Devcon, and upheld its core values. “Ethereum’s ability to consistently deliver hard forks, foster client collaboration, and maintain its core principles is thanks in part to Aya’s leadership,” Buterin wrote. The discussion about Miyaguchi’s new role has been ongoing for over a year. Buterin previously confirmed that a major leadership restructuring was in progress. Despite her contributions, some Ethereum community members have questioned her leadership direction. Eric Conner, a core developer, pushed for Danny Ryan to be appointed as Executive Director instead. The debate intensified, with some users even harassing Miyaguchi and demanding her resignation. Conner eventually left the Ethereum Foundation amid the controversy. At the same time, Ethereum is dealing with technical setbacks. The Pectra upgrade , a key testnet update, failed on Holesky due to a misconfiguration in tracking validator deposits. This issue caused inconsistencies in Execution Layer (EL) clients, preventing many from correctly processing deposits. However, some minority clients continued validating blocks without issues, exposing flaws in client implementations. While this failure only affected Holesky and not the Ethereum mainnet, it provided important lessons for improving Ethereum’s upgrade process. As Ethereum navigates leadership changes and technical hurdles, Miyaguchi’s tenure as President will play a crucial role in shaping its future.
