Former Ethereum Developer Details Controversial Dismissal and Allegations Against Foundation

Former lead developer of the Geth client, Peter Silady, has accused the Ethereum Foundation (EF) of attempting to allocate $5 million to incentivize the project’s team to separate from the foundation.

«Remember my sabbatical? That was a time when I had a private meeting with @0xstark regarding the ‘secret second Geth team’ I had discovered. I was dismissed from the foundation within 24 hours 🙂

‘Threatening to resign is unacceptable and undermines team morale.'»

Silady shared these insights in a series of posts on X. He mentioned that his so-called «creative break» in November was actually linked to a discussion with foundation representative Josh Stark. During their talk, he sought clarity about the existence of a «secret second Geth team,» which he had learned about shortly before.

‘I was fired from the foundation within 24 hours,’ he stated.

According to Silady, EF threatened to withdraw funding for Geth. Instead, developers, including himself, were offered $5 million to spin off the client into a private company. Silady claims he turned down this and similar offers on multiple occasions.

His statements were a response to comments made by Tomas Stanczak, the new co-director of EF and a developer of the second most popular client, Nethermind. Stanczak asserted, «There are no plans to remove Geth.»

Geth is an outstanding client software and has a skilled team contributing to the security of the protocol. We will continue to maintain and support Geth, aiming to enhance it further.

This was in response to Silady’s earlier claim that the foundation intended to eliminate Geth over the coming years to focus solely on research and education.

Geth (Go Ethereum) remains the most widely used Ethereum execution client. According to Ethernodes, it operates around 63% of the network’s active nodes. Its initial development was managed by the Ethereum Foundation.

It’s worth noting that in March, the Ethereum Foundation underwent significant leadership changes.

Following these managerial shifts, the organization refocused on enhancing user experience and addressing L1 scalability issues.

In June, the Ethereum Foundation reduced part of its research and development team to concentrate on critical challenges and foundational protocol issues.