Ethan Buchman, the co-founder of Cosmos, stepped down from the Interchain Foundation's Foundation Council on December 10, 20241. That was the day the foundation announced it had bought Skip and renamed it Interchain Inc., according to the foundation's own press release. The release said Buchman was “stepping down from the council following this acquisition, after facilitating this transitionary period”. It added that he looked forward to focusing on Cosmos as its co-founder and a builder in the ecosystem. Buchman confirmed the resignation in his own words more than two months later, in a letter published on the foundation's Medium page on February 19, 20253.
Eight leadership moves at the Interchain Foundation since 2024, five in 2024
Leadership moves CryptoLately has verified at the Interchain Foundation, by year
- 2024: 5
- 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 5 |
| 2025 | 0 |
| 2026 | 3 |
Four board exits on the record in 2024
Board exits CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2024: 4
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2021 | 4 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 7 |
| 2026 | 10 |
The move
Buchman's letter described the resignation as the end of years spent trying to fix the foundation's structure. “I truly believe this is the most substantial organizational event in Cosmos since the original fundraiser, nearly eight years ago,” he wrote3. He called the Skip deal “a transition of leadership, a consolidation, and a complete realignment of the Cosmos organizational structure.” Buchman wrote that he had planned to step down from the foundation's board "for the better part of 2 years". Yet he waited, he said, until he judged the organization was strong enough for him to leave. “With this monumental milestone now behind us, I have formally resigned from the ICF's Foundation Council,” Buchman wrote.
Reporter Daniel Kuhn covered the resignation on December 10, 2024, the day it was announced. Kuhn quoted a post on X where Buchman named the problem behind his exit. “Cosmos has long struggled with org fragmentation and a lack of core competencies at the foundation,” Buchman wrote2. He added that he had “full confidence in Josh and Maxime on the ICF Foundation Council and Barry and Mag at the helm of Interchain Inc.” Kuhn reported that the Foundation Council would elect three new board members after the departure.
Buchman's record before the resignation
His letter traced years of trying to fix the organization he was now leaving. He wrote that after "the fallout of AiB," the foundation tried to rebuild core development by forming a subsidiary and a new funding program3. That effort, he wrote, left development too tangled to manage well. Buchman said he had spun out a separate company, Informal, after "falling out with my co-founder". Informal went on to steward both CometBFT and the Cosmos Hub, he wrote. By the summer of 2024, Buchman wrote, the Hub needed "a unified product leadership role" spanning research, product, business development, marketing and growth. Informal spoke with almost a dozen candidate teams, he said, before settling on Skip as the best fit.
What came next
Buchman named his own next step in the same letter that confirmed his resignation. He wrote that he was looking forward to “continuing to contribute across this great ecosystem, and to put it to real-world use in my next big chapter, with Cycles,” a new venture where he described himself as a founder3. His February 19, 2025 letter came about 10 weeks after the December 10, 2024 Skip deal that triggered his departure1. By then, Interchain Inc. had begun the work Plunkett and Mareneck were named to lead on the day Buchman announced he was leaving.
Sources
- Interchain Foundation, "Interchain Foundation Acquires Blockchain Solutions Provider Skip to Reignite Cosmos: the interchain," CoinDesk (press release), December 10, 2024, https://www.coindesk.com/press-release/2024/12/10/interchain-foundation-acquires-blockchain-solutions-provider-skip-to-reignite-cosmos-the-interchain
- Daniel Kuhn, "In latest shakeup, Interchain Foundation acquires Skip to refocus Cosmos Hub at ecosystem's core," The Block, December 10, 2024, https://www.theblock.co/post/330189/in-latest-shakeup-interchain-foundation-acquires-skip-to-refocus-cosmos-hub-at-ecosystems-core
- Ethan Buchman, "To the Cosmos Ecosystem, from Ethan Buchman," The Interchain Foundation (Medium), February 19, 2025, https://medium.com/the-interchain-foundation/to-the-cosmos-ecosystem-from-ethan-buchman-a8d7abc29099