Ming Chan left her post as executive director of the Ethereum Foundation on January 31, 20181. She had served two and a half years. A blog post titled "Farewell and Welcome" marked her exit and named her successor on January 31, 2018.
Two of the Ethereum Foundation's 12 leadership moves on the record came in 2018
Leadership moves CryptoLately has verified at the Ethereum Foundation, by year
- 2018: 2
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
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 |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 0 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 4 |
Two CEO exits on the record in 2018
CEO exits CryptoLately has verified, by year
- 2018: 2
- 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
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 |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2017 | 3 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 7 |
| 2020 | 9 |
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 11 |
The departure
Her tenure ran from August 1, 2015, to January 31, 2018, ZyCrypto's report on her resignation said2. Ethereum Foundation's statement listed four achievements by name. The statement named multiple rounds of reorganization that cut costs, new relationships with the research group IC3, three Devcon events, and oversight through "the DAO hack and 2016 DoS attacks"1. She kept her reasons for leaving private. ZyCrypto quoted her saying only that she would be “taking care of a number of long overdue matters of a personal nature”.
Chan answered the Foundation's farewell with her own statement. “I wholeheartedly wish the very best for the Foundation, the new team members and those of us who carry on here we brave the new world to evolve and shine both together and separately,” Chan said2.
The handoff
Aya Miyaguchi, then managing director of Kraken Japan, took over the post Chan vacated, effective February 1, 20181. She moved from a trading exchange's regional operation into the organization that funds Ethereum's core development. “Having been involved in different layers of the blockchain ecosystem, I am aware of the the improvements that need to happen at the core level of the Ethereum platform, and that these improvements can only happen with the support of a strong community,” Miyaguchi said in the same post.
What came next
Miyaguchi still sat on the Ethereum Foundation's board on July 29, 2026. A CoinGape report from that date named her the Foundation's president. The board had added security researcher Pascal Caversaccio as its fourth member, alongside Miyaguchi and co-founder Vitalik Buterin3. CoinGape said Caversaccio brings "far more than security expertise" to the group.
Sources
- Ethereum Team, "Farewell and Welcome," Ethereum Foundation Blog, Jan. 31, 2018, https://blog.ethereum.org/2018/01/31/farewell-and-welcome
- Jose Antonio, "Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation Resigns," ZyCrypto, Feb. 2, 2018, https://zycrypto.com/executive-director-ethereum-foundation-resigns/
- Sneha Agrawal, "Ethereum Foundation Appoints Pascal Caversaccio to Board Alongside Vitalik Buterin, Aya Miyaguchi," CoinGape, July 29, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi1AFBVV95cUxObnBURUpBVTBVYm04WTlEaFByTTZiZUlyT3VSbU1FQzZuTjdYUHhLbmJFRUhzWmJ2LWd1WHhhdkdnbFVLcmk4aUpTbFE2RTRubTdIbzVaNmxHMVg0cEtuckNwM2hSTjNnTDc1X1dJR01FaDRBTlQ3ZHp4cFBGLVRLS2JVeVM2blZYOWdWbkFlM2t6LWdvdFJHOVozZzg5UEtnc3lJaEpwNERqVy1KWlk1a1lPbzFXT1llVzFmbl9VMFJ5Sm9WaWN6OHQzZEVRSTE3b25lcg