Ethereum Foundation under fire over allegations of secret teams
One of the lead developers of Ethereum's flagship software client Geth, Péter Szilágyi, accuses the Ethereum Foundation of setting up secret development teams and systematically undermining his team.
One of the lead developers of Ethereum’s most popular software client Geth, Péter Szilágyi, accuses the Ethereum Foundation of setting up secret development teams and systematically undermining his team. Szilágyi worked on Geth for years within the foundation, but says he was fired recently after asking questions about the existence of a second, secret development team.
‘Secret’ Geth team at a competitor
According to Szilágyi, the Ethereum Foundation quietly started a second Geth team within the company Nethermind, without informing the original team. In a post on X, he wrote:
"EF started and funded a second Geth team within Nethermind. A '100% independent split from us, with no intended collaboration', according to Josh Stark, and they told me, Felix and Martin only when I discovered it in November 2025."
Szilágyi later corrected himself and said it was 2024. He claims that after a conversation about it with Josh Stark, a representative of the foundation, he was fired immediately.
Attempts to lure team members away
According to Szilágyi, the Ethereum Foundation also tried to weaken his team in other ways:
- Developers were encouraged to take jobs at other companies
- There were proposals to cut salaries
- The foundation reportedly offered as much as $5 million to let the team continue as a private company
These steps, he says, are part of a broader strategy to move Geth development outside the foundation.
New direction for Ethereum Foundation
On June 2, the Ethereum Foundation itself announced layoffs and that the core team’s focus would shift to scalability, more blobspace storage capacity, and a better user experience for Ethereum users. That move aims to make Ethereum more accessible to a broader audience.
Funding is changing too. Instead of selling Ether, the foundation will now earn income from interest via DeFi protocols. There will also be more transparency: the foundation will regularly publish financial reports showing costs and reserves.
Unrest within the community
Szilágyi’s revelations have rattled the Ethereum community. Geth is the most widely used Ethereum client, and tensions between developers and the foundation could affect trust in the network.
It's still unclear how the Ethereum Foundation will respond to the accusations, but there’s already a lot of discussion within the community about balancing decentralization, transparency, and behind-the-scenes oversight.
