Carl Beekhuizen, a long time Ethereum Foundation contributor, has announced that Friday, May 29 will be his last day at the Ethereum Foundation. In a detailed public note, Beekhuizen reflected on seven years of work inside one of the most important research & development organizations in the Ethereum ecosystem.

His departure marks the end of a major personal chapter, but it also serves as a reminder of how much Ethereum itself has changed during the same period. When Beekhuizen entered the ecosystem, Ethereum was still working toward some of its most ambitious technical goals.

• A Seven Year Journey Inside Ethereum
• From Beacon Chain Design to KZG Ceremony
• Why This Departure Matters for Ethereum
• What Comes Next for Carl Beekhuizen

A Seven Year Journey Inside Ethereum

The Beacon Chain was still in its early design phase, Proof of Stake was not yet live on mainnet, & many of Ethereum’s scaling plans were still research heavy concepts rather than production infrastructure. Over the years, Ethereum moved from a Proof of Work blockchain to a Proof of Stake network, introduced the Beacon Chain, completed The Merge, shipped blob transactions through EIP 4844, & continued to build toward a more scalable rollup centric roadmap.

Beekhuizen’s farewell post places him directly within that transformation. He wrote that he was humbled by the projects he worked on, specifically mentioning the KZG ceremony & the early design of the Beacon Chain.

He also described how the Ethereum community welcomed him at the age of 23, giving him space to contribute ideas, influence a major global technology, & grow alongside some of the most technical minds in crypto.

From Beacon Chain Design to KZG Ceremony

The Beacon Chain was the foundation of Ethereum’s transition to Proof of Stake. It introduced Ethereum’s consensus layer, validator based security model, & the architecture that eventually allowed The Merge to take place.

The Merge was not simply a change in consensus mechanism. It was a live network transition involving billions of dollars in value, thousands of developers, validators, infrastructure providers, exchanges, applications, & users.

KZG ceremony, is closely tied to Ethereum’s scaling roadmap. KZG commitments became a key cryptographic building block for proto danksharding & blob transactions.

The KZG ceremony itself was notable because it invited wide public participation. It was not just a private technical setup performed by a small group. It became a community level event where contributors helped generate cryptographic parameters needed for future scalability upgrades.

By naming both the Beacon Chain & KZG ceremony, Beekhuizen’s post connects his work to two major phases of Ethereum’s evolution.

After 7 incredible years, I've decided that Friday May 29th will be my last day at the Ethereum Foundation.

I'm humbled by the projects I got to work on along the way: from the KZG ceremony, to helping architect the early design of the Beacon Chain, and a lot in between. At the…

— carlbeek (@CarlBeek) May 18, 2026

Why This Departure Matters for Ethereum

Ethereum is often discussed through upgrades, EIPs, roadmaps, fee markets, client diversity, validator economics, & Layer 2 scaling. But Beekhuizen’s message brings attention back to the people behind the protocol.

He thanked the researchers, the core developers, the members of the Ethereum Foundation, and the whole community, whether or not they had worked closely with him. His note said that what makes Ethereum strong is the people behind it, not the technology.

This point matters because Ethereum is not built like a traditional company product. It is an open source protocol shaped by researchers, client teams, wallet developers, application builders, educators, governance participants, infrastructure operators, & independent community members.

Departures from the Ethereum Foundation can therefore be interpreted in two ways.

• On the one hand, it means that some experienced contributors who have made significant contributions are leaving the research group.
• On the other hand, it also shows that the ecosystem is growing.

Now contributors can go to jobs, start new projects, join other teams, or build products that still help Ethereum even if they are not part of the Foundation anymore. Beek’s goodbye does not mean he is completely leaving Ethereum or technology.

What Comes Next for Carl Beekhuizen

Beekhuizen did not announce a specific new role or company. For now, he said he plans to spend time with his wife & their one month old child while figuring out the next step.

Longer term, he said he wants to find or create something with brilliant people at the intersection of engineering excellence, hard problems, & useful products that drive economic activity at scale. This description leaves open several possible directions, including infrastructure, research, product development, cryptography, financial systems, or new startup work.

For the Ethereum community, the important takeaway is that one of its long standing contributors is moving on from the Ethereum Foundation after helping shape some of the network’s most important foundations. His work on the Beacon Chain connects to Ethereum’s Proof of Stake era. His involvement in the KZG ceremony connects to Ethereum’s scaling era.

Together, these contributions place him within the group of builders who helped Ethereum move from ambitious roadmap to live infrastructure. As Ethereum continues toward future upgrades, including further scaling improvements, stronger proposer builder separation discussions, execution layer changes, & deeper rollup integration, the work of contributors like Beekhuizen will remain part of the network’s technical history.

His departure is also a reminder that Ethereum’s progress has always depended on people willing to work through uncertainty, complexity, & long timelines. Protocol development is slow, public, difficult, & often underappreciated. Yet it is this kind of work that turns research into infrastructure used by millions.

For now, Beek is leaving the Ethereum Foundation. He is very thankful. His time at Ethereum shows that open source work is not about writing code. Many people have been working together for years because they believe the work is important. Beek’s journey with Ethereum is an example of this. The Ethereum protocol is built by people who believe in it.

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