restructuring

The Ethereum Foundation announced in a blog that it has completed a months-long reorganization and laid off 54 people, approximately 20% of the previous workforce.This adjustment continues the strategic transformation of "Lean Ethereum" and the development direction for 2026, repositioning the Ethereum Foundation as a lighter protocol governance and maintenance entity, rather than a primary core builder.This change is further advanced based on the 2025 PR&D (Research and Development) reorganization (reducing staff from over 110 to below 100), the previous layoff of about 19 people, and the successive departures of several senior researchers.

According to The Block, Ben Werkman, Chief Investment Officer of the Bitcoin treasury company Strive, stated at the BTC Prague event that if Bitcoin prices continue to remain low, treasury companies relying on convertible bond financing will face greater pressure, being forced to sell Bitcoin to maintain operations or repay debts, making industry consolidation inevitable. Currently, Bitcoin has dropped about 50% from its historical high of approximately $126,000 last October.Werkman pointed out that Strive previously chose to rely solely on equity financing and not issue convertible bonds, allowing it to continue operations during the bear market, citing the acquisition of Semler Scientific as a case of industry consolidation. He also mentioned that companies like Nakamoto are actively deleveraging to regain operational flexibility.

According to Benchmark Studio, after the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued inquiries to multiple companies regarding overseas shareholding structures, Chinese tech startups such as Moonshot AI and DeepRoute.ai are evaluating the feasibility of relocating their company registration from overseas back to China. They are currently discussing related plans with lawyers and have not yet made a final decision. Shanghai AI model developer StepFun has taken the lead in initiating the process of dismantling its overseas shareholding structure to expedite the regulatory approval process for its Hong Kong IPO.The direct trigger for this tightening of regulations was Meta's acquisition of the AI agency Manus, founded by Chinese individuals, for $2 billion—relevant authorities have ordered the cancellation of this acquisition, leading to a systematic review by regulators of the "domestic operation, overseas registration" company model.Dismantling the red-chip structure is complex, typically taking six months to a year, involving multiple steps such as repurchasing offshore equity, establishing joint ventures, and investors re-entering shares. Additionally, the lock-up period for joint ventures listed in Hong Kong lasts up to 12 months, which is twice as long as that for ordinary red-chip stocks. Analysts point out that if the red-chip structure faces comprehensive restrictions, it will significantly weaken the ability of Chinese startups to obtain dollar financing from overseas.

According to The Block, zero-knowledge proof scaling developer StarkWare announced layoffs and initiated an internal restructuring. Co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson stated in an all-hands meeting that the company is "overly large" and needs to return to a "startup mode" to accelerate product-market fit. The specific number of layoffs and the timeline have not yet been disclosed, but the company promises to provide severance compensation that exceeds legal requirements.After the restructuring, StarkWare will split into two independent business units: one is a revenue-oriented application department led by current CPO Avihu Levy, focusing on developing monetizable products on its own technology stack; the other is the Starknet development department led by current product head Tom Brand. Each unit will have its own engineering, product, and marketing teams.Strategically, StarkWare plans to fully control the complete blockchain proof technology stack, including Cairo, Sierra, and quantum-resistant STARK cryptography, reducing reliance on external Layer 1 blockchains and application teams. Ben-Sasson stated that the company will shift from "doing many things well" to "doing a few things excellently," focusing on high-potential, high-value directions that only StarkWare can achieve. Additionally, COO Oren Katz has applied for resignation and will officially leave at the end of April.

According to Business Insider, SpaceX executive Michael Nicolls pointed out in a memo sent to xAI employees that the company's training performance is "embarrassingly low" and clearly stated that xAI is "significantly behind" its competitors. Previous reports indicated that xAI is experiencing staff turnover and team adjustments.The memo announced an immediate reorganization of the engineering team, appointing several new leaders responsible for pre-training, post-training, infrastructure, and other modules. This move is part of a comprehensive reconstruction pushed by Elon Musk after SpaceX acquired xAI in February 2026, aimed at quickly catching up with competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

According to Bloomberg, Standard Chartered Bank plans to bring the client custody business of its Zodia Custody back under its Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) digital assets division, with an announcement expected as early as this month. After the restructuring, Zodia will operate solely as an independent custody technology software as a service (SaaS) platform.Standard Chartered Bank established Zodia Custody in late 2020 in partnership with Northern Trust through its innovation division SC Ventures, subsequently attracting a few equity investors such as SBI Holdings, National Australia Bank, and Emirates NBD. It currently has about 150 employees across seven offices worldwide.

MCN Group officially announced today that it has completed the full acquisition of the NADI public chain (NADI Chain) and will undergo a comprehensive strategic restructuring.Based on a shared belief in the future development trends of blockchain technology, both parties have decided to integrate their advantageous underlying technologies and the resources of hundreds of millions of global users, fully incorporating the NADI public chain into the MCN ecosystem to jointly create a brand new public chain, MCN Chain, dedicated to building a comprehensive and multi-dimensional AI + blockchain ecosystem.According to the acquisition and restructuring plan, the new public chain will uniformly use MCN as the official sole native token. It will deeply empower the new public chain in terms of technological research and development, ecological incentives, and market expansion. MCN Group will use this as a starting point to build a more vibrant and competitive global AI Agent blockchain network.

According to CoinDesk, Mike Selig, the new chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), issued a statement on Monday announcing that the agency is currently restructuring its advisory panel and reestablishing an innovation committee, which will initially consist of a group of cryptocurrency industry insiders.Former acting chair Caroline Pham quickly assembled a team of CEOs focused on innovative financial technology during her last days in office. Just a month after the announcement of the innovation committee, Selig confirmed the individuals on this list as the "founding members" of the innovation advisory committee. This means that the committee's initial members will include executives from cryptocurrency companies such as Gemini, Kraken, Bitnomial, Crypto.com, and Bullish, as well as executives from traditional firms like Nasdaq, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Intercontinental Exchange, and Cboe Global Markets.The innovation committee will assist regulators in developing these new rules based on the original technical advisory committee. This committee will be one of five such external committees aimed at helping guide the agency's work in members' areas of expertise. The agency is expected to become one of the main cryptocurrency regulators in the U.S. and is currently inviting the public to submit additional member candidates and suggested topics for review by the end of January.

Scroll's official statement clarifies that the recent rumors about the closure of Scroll DAO stem from a misunderstanding of the governance structure reorganization announcement.The actual situation is that the DAO has not stopped; it is only undergoing governance structure adjustments. Governance is still functioning normally, and the Galileo upgrade proposal has been approved. Moving forward, community feedback will continue to be collected through the co-creation cycle. The complete governance plan for 2026 will be announced in January next year, and the current governance cycle will continue to progress before that.