The Ethereum Foundation has been hit by a crisis due to the exodus of key developers and leaders, factors that have hit retail investor confidence and driven down the price of Ether (ETH), the network’s native cryptocurrency.
This distrust accelerated after several high-profile individuals resigned from the organization. Developer Pablo Voorvaart and his counterpart Julian Ma announced their resignation from the agency on May 18 and 19, 2026, respectively.. These losses are in addition to the previous resignation of Tomasz Stańczak, who left his role as executive co-director along with other key developers at the company in February.
In line with these events, data analysis firm Santiment highlighted that the main cause of the negative factors is “the resignation of members of the Ethereum Foundation and increasing reports of the public distancing of prominent ETH supporters from the ecosystem.”
As a result of this situation, the consulting firm detailed that “sentiment towards Ethereum changed dramatically and retail investors quickly exited.”
Similarly, the company explained that crypto investors “tend to react very emotionally during periods of underperformance, which is why ETH is viewed as a worthless investment compared to assets that have shown much greater momentum in 2026.”
To reduce the operational impact of casualties, Ethereum Foundation researcher and advisor Danclad Feist proposed on May 21 the creation of an independent external organization. The initial capital of this entity will be at least $1 billion According to a report by CriptoNoticias, the funding will be funded through staking income.
Feist argued that the effort is aimed at “saving Ethereum” as the original foundation lacks the necessary financial resources to lead development. For this plan, Bankless founder Ryan Sean Adams proposed Tom Lee, president of Bitmine, a publicly traded company with Ethereum’s largest corporate treasury, as an ally. Mr. Lee responded positively; We are confident that our team of strong leaders will secure the future of our network.
In the financial realm, the situation with exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has only intensified these concerns over ETH prices. funds Capital outflows for 9 consecutive days totaled $464 million. Commenting on this, Santiman said, “This creates a vicious psychological cycle in which falling prices create fear, fear leads to capital outflows, and those outflows create more fear.” The firm added that bearish sentiment towards ETH has increasingly reflected this cycle throughout this month.
Due to this selling pressure, ETH is currently trading at $2,130, reflecting an 8% decline over the past month and a 56% difference from its all-time high of $4,900 set in August 2025.
This behavior is reflected in graphic patterns in the market, with analysts such as Perrin Eye stating: Identify warning signs about the direction price may be heading in the short term.
The chart below by Ay shows how price broke through the lower bound of the consolidation formation, with the bar below reflecting the spike in volatility on the exchange.
“From a technical point of view, the market structure appears to be weakening. In particular, the recent breakdown of the triangle indicates that the consolidation phase has shifted in favor of sellers,” the expert said.
Ai elaborated that the moving average line (an indicator line that averages past prices to identify trend direction) has started to slope downward.
“Another important element on the chart is Binance’s liquidation data,” Ai commented, pointing out the vertical bars that represent how leveraged positions are wiped out of the market due to sudden long-term liquidations. Analysts concluded that if Ethereum is unable to recover from its broken triangle structure, selling pressure could accelerate further. And price could head straight towards the major support level at $1,350.
(Tag translation) Altcoin
