Former Ethereum Foundation researcher Péter Szilágyi says he rejected $5 million to spin out Geth Ethereum client

Péter Szilágyi, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher and lead developer of Geth, claims he turned down a $5 million offer to spin out the Ethereum core client as a private company, according to a series of posts on X this week. He also alleged the foundation secretly funded a rival Geth development team.“Remember my sabbatical? Yeah, that was me having a one-to-one meeting with @0xstark about that ‘secret second Geth team’ I found out about,” Szilágyi, known online as Karalabe, posted on X on Wednesday, referring to Ethereum communicator Josh Stark. “Within 24 hours I was fired from the foundation :).”Geth — short for Go Ethereum — is the most widely used Ethereum execution client, powering nearly 63% of active nodes, according to Ethernodes. It was originally developed by the Ethereum Foundation.According to Szilágyi, the Ethereum Foundation threatened to cut funding for Geth and offered developers, including Szilágyi, $5 million to spin off into a private company. Szilágyi was responding to Tomasz K. Stańczak, who was recently named co-director of the EF and had developed the second-largest Ethereum client, Nethermind. Szilágyi claims he was approached multiple times with similar offers. He announced his sabbatical from the foundation in November. Stańczak’s post that provoked the response claimed that “there is no plan to remove Geth.” Stańczak was responding to a claim by Szilágyi that EF’s goal “is to also remove Geth in a couple years to allow EF to be research/education only.”The Ethereum Foundation has undergone significant changes in recent months. Last week, it announced developer layoffs and published a blog post outlining a new strategic focus for deploying its remaining ETH holdings.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.