Szilágyi accuses EF of a $5M offer, Geth ouster, and developer pressure before being fired – then refusing to return without a public apology. He claims that EF funded a parallel Geth team within Nethermind without informing the main team.
Geth and the Spin-Out Controversy
Let’s take a closer look at the conflict and first clarify the technical aspect. Ethereum uses a multi-client architecture, in which several independent clients implement the same consensus and execution rules. This increases the network’s resilience and reduces the risks of centralized implementation. All clients follow the same specifications, undergo common testing, and are expected to be fully interchangeable at the level of transaction execution and state processing. Geth (Go Ethereum) is one such client, implementing the Ethereum protocol in Go. In addition to Geth, there are other clients such as Nethermind and Besu.
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Péter Szilágyi, the technical lead and main maintainer of the Geth client, stated that the Ethereum Foundation had offered $5 million for a spin-out of the Geth team.
He also stated that the Ethereum Foundation initiated and funded a second team working on an alternative version of Geth within Nethermind. According to him, it was a “100% independent fork from us, with no intended collaboration,” as 0xstark described it. He emphasized that neither he, Felix, nor Martin were informed of this until November 2025.
Szilágyi claims that after a personal meeting with 0xstark regarding the “secret second Geth team,” he was fired from the Ethereum Foundation within 24 hours.
“Threatening to quit is unacceptable and destroys team morale.”
He also said that Tomasz Stańczak, the new Ethereum Foundation lead, had recently encouraged the remaining members of the Geth team to seek employment at other companies. Szilágyi claims that Stańczak disagreed with the team’s compensation levels and cut their salaries.
According to him, EF asked him to return multiple times – in February, March, April, and once again the day before he posted the tweets. However, he declined, as his condition was a public apology. As Szilágyi wrote:
“I had one condition: I wanted an apology. ‘Not possible’. Well then, my return it also not possible.”
For now, the Ethereum Foundation has not publicly responded to these accusations, except for a comment by Tomasz Stańczak:
“There is no plan to remove Geth. It is a great client software and a talented team contributing to protocol security.”
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Conclusion
It’s a rather strange situation. On the one hand, we’re seeing active efforts by EF to improve efficiency, enhance security, and attract new talent. On the other hand, there have been major shifts in the leadership board, including the departure of Vitalik Buterin.
So, we’re witnessing a push by EF to do things better, but we’re also seeing some fairly decisive – and even abrupt – actions from the new leadership. And now, these kinds of statements are being made about that very leadership. I would be cautious toward both sides in this conflict. There’s no official confirmation of these claims, but we are observing a tougher EF strategy.
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