The Ethereum Foundation has added security researcher Pascal Caversaccio, known online as pcaversaccio, to its board, giving the organization a four-member security council as it reshapes its staff, research structure and institutional-facing work.
The foundation announced the appointment on Wednesday, naming Caversaccio alongside President Aya Miyaguchi, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Swiss counsel representative Patrick Storchenegger. The board is responsible for protecting the foundation and ensuring it meets its obligations as a Swiss foundation, according to the organization.
Caversaccio’s arrival places a security-focused researcher on a board that has become more visible during a period of organizational change. He co-founded SEAL 911, an Ethereum security initiative, and has contributed technical work and writing focused on security, privacy, decentralization and cypherpunk principles.
A board role shaped by security and Swiss compliance
The Ethereum Foundation’s description of its board emphasizes a dual responsibility: organizational protection and legal compliance. That framing gives Caversaccio’s appointment a practical role beyond public representation, particularly for a foundation that supports research, protocol development and grants across a decentralized ecosystem.
Storchenegger, the board’s Swiss counsel representative, provides legal expertise tied to the foundation’s home jurisdiction. Miyaguchi has led the organization through a period of internal restructuring, while Buterin remains Ethereum’s most prominent technical and philosophical figure.
Caversaccio brings a background more directly associated with responding to security threats. SEAL 911 was created to help coordinate rapid support for Ethereum projects facing active exploits and vulnerabilities. Security incidents can spread quickly through interconnected protocols, making coordination between researchers, developers and affected projects a recurring concern for the ecosystem.
His public work has also tied Ethereum’s technical development to the values commonly associated with the cypherpunk movement. Caversaccio wrote “The Ethereum Cypherpunk Manifesto,” adapting Eric Hughes’ influential 1993 “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto” for Ethereum.
That text has featured in discussions around principles the foundation later grouped under the acronym CROPS: censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security. The framework has become a concise expression of the foundation’s stated mandate as it narrows the areas where it intends to play a central role.
Staffing cuts accompanied a research reorganization
The appointment follows significant changes inside the Ethereum Foundation. In June, the organization said it had reduced staff by 20% while reorganizing its work around five core research-and-development units.
The reductions followed a series of senior departures, including two co-executive directors, co-leads of the Protocol team and other longtime contributors. Such departures can be disruptive for any research organization, especially one whose work affects an open-source network maintained by many independent teams rather than a single corporate operator.
The foundation addressed its direction in March through an internal mandate centered on CROPS. The mandate placed censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy and security at the core of the organization’s work, drawing clearer boundaries around a foundation that has historically been associated with a broad range of Ethereum ecosystem initiatives.
That narrower focus could leave more room for independent organizations to take on work connected to adoption, enterprise engagement and specialized product development. The emerging structure divides responsibilities by function rather than placing protocol research, institutional outreach and commercial privacy tools under one umbrella.
New organizations take on adoption and applied work
Several entities have been formed after the foundation’s restructuring to support work that had previously been associated more closely with the Ethereum Foundation.
EthLabs, an independent nonprofit research-and-development studio, was co-founded by five former senior Ethereum Foundation researchers. Its stated formation adds another venue for technical development outside the foundation’s revised internal structure.
Ethereum Institutional has been launched as a nonprofit focused on coordinating institutional outreach. The organization consolidated prior institutional engagement efforts into a separate group, creating a clearer channel for financial firms, service providers and other large organizations seeking to work with Ethereum-related technology.
EthSystems, a for-profit company founded earlier this month, is focused on applied privacy and cryptography tools for institutions. It was co-founded by former leaders of the Ethereum Foundation’s Institutional Privacy Task Force.
The three organizations—EthLabs, Ethereum Institutional and EthSystems—have received support from Bitmine, Sharplink and Consensys founder Joseph Lubin, among other backers, according to their announcements. Their different legal and operational structures reflect the distinction between nonprofit research, ecosystem coordination and commercial product development.
EthSystems’ focus on privacy tooling addresses a practical problem for organizations that may want to use public blockchain infrastructure while limiting the exposure of sensitive business information. Public blockchains make transaction data broadly visible by design, so privacy-preserving cryptography can be necessary for certain institutional uses without changing Ethereum’s base layer.
Institutional group cites more than 100 participants
Ethereum Institutional said Tuesday that more than 100 ecosystem participants had committed capital, time, expertise and/or promotional support to its goals. The group listed 21Shares, Galaxy, Robinhood and the Linux Foundation among those participants.
The announcement does not mean every listed organization is pursuing the same products or committing the same level of resources. It does show that the new nonprofit is trying to become a coordination point for companies and organizations that want to support Ethereum’s institutional use cases.
The reorganization also reduces the chance that the Ethereum Foundation becomes the default home for every type of ecosystem initiative. Its own mandate now emphasizes protocol-adjacent values such as security and censorship resistance, while separate entities can pursue institutional engagement, privacy applications and research programs with their own governance and funding models.
Caversaccio’s board appointment fits that transition. As more Ethereum-related organizations operate independently, the foundation’s board is being positioned to focus more tightly on stewardship, resilience and the principles that guide the organization’s role in the network.
Curious about Ethereum’s roadmap? Deepen your understanding with our guide: What is Ethereum and how does it work.
Disclaimer: The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not represent the views or financial advice of Toobit. We make no guarantees regarding the accuracy or completeness of this information and shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from its use. Investing in digital assets involves risk; users should independently evaluate their financial situation and the risks involved. For further details, please consult our Terms of Service and Risk Disclosure.
