Aya Miyaguchi
 | |
| Nationality | Japanese |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Executive |
| Known for | Executive Director and President of the Ethereum Foundation |
Aya Miyaguchi is a Japanese cryptocurrency executive who served as Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) from 2018 to 2025 and became the foundation's President in February 2025. Before joining the EF she was a high school teacher in Japan and later ran the Japanese operations of the exchange Kraken. She is associated with the "Infinite Garden" vision of Ethereum, and proposed the document that became the EF Mandate.[1][2]
Early life and career
Miyaguchi worked as a high school teacher in Japan before moving to the United States for graduate study.[2][3] She began following Bitcoin around 2011, and in early 2013 she joined Kraken as Managing Director for Japan.[3][4] After the collapse of Mt. Gox in 2014, she worked with Japanese regulators and industry groups on the country's early approach to cryptocurrency exchanges.[3] She met Vitalik Buterin in 2013.[2]
Ethereum Foundation
Executive Director
Miyaguchi joined the Ethereum Foundation as Executive Director in February 2018 at Buterin's invitation, succeeding Ming Chan.[3] In the role she coordinated the foundation's research, development, grants and community programs.[2] Her tenure covered the expansion of the EF's grants programs and Ethereum's 2022 move to proof of stake, known as the Merge.[5] In 2019 she joined the World Economic Forum's Blockchain Global Council and the board of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.[4]
She is credited with the "Infinite Garden" framing of Ethereum, which draws on James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games to describe Ethereum as an open-ended, permissionless space for others to build in rather than a product with a fixed goal.[1][3]
In late 2024 and early 2025, critics in the Ethereum community blamed the foundation's leadership for Ethereum's performance against rival blockchains, and some called for Miyaguchi to be replaced. Buterin condemned the harassment directed at her, while stating that he would decide the foundation's new leadership himself.[5][3]
President
As part of the leadership restructuring that followed, Miyaguchi became President of the Ethereum Foundation effective February 25, 2025, a new role focused on the foundation's long-term vision and institutional relationships.[5][2] Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were later named co-executive directors, and as of April 2025 Miyaguchi sat on the EF board with Buterin, Wang and Patrick Storchenegger.[6] Stańczak resigned in early 2026 and Bastian Aue was appointed co-executive director; after Wang began a leave of absence on April 6, 2026, and later resigned, Aue served as the foundation's sole executive director.[7]
Miyaguchi proposed the document that became the EF Mandate in late 2025, to set out the foundation's principles. She circulated a draft to staff on February 25, 2026, and the board published the final Mandate, with art by Shiro, on March 13, 2026.[8][7] The Mandate's signing requirement and its Source Seppuku License illustration later became the center of the Ethereum Foundation Mandate Controversy.
Milady profile picture
Miyaguchi uses a Milady as her profile picture on X. The image shows a Milady with rainbow-streaked hair in a black "Hikigaimori Condition" T-shirt, set against a landscape of grass and water. The shirt alters the usual Milady "Hikkikimori Condition" shirt to read "Hikigaimori". The word is not standard Japanese, and appears to be a play on hikikomori, social withdrawal, and ikigai, a sense of purpose or reason for living.
See also
- Ethereum Foundation
- EF Mandate
- Ethereum Foundation Mandate Controversy
- Vitalik Buterin
- Vitalik Milady Arc
- Wartime PFP
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Aya Miyaguchi". The Long Now Foundation. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 February 27, 2025. "The new president of Ethereum Foundation was once a high school teacher". CoinLive. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 February 5, 2025. "Aya Miyaguchi: Teacher, Executive Director of Ethereum and Her "Infinite Garden"". ChainCatcher. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Biography: Aya Miyaguchi". International Telecommunication Union. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 February 26, 2025. "Ethereum Foundation Elevates Aya Miyaguchi to President Amid Leadership Restructuring". Bitcoin.com News. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ April 28, 2025. "Ethereum Foundation's Management and Board Structure". Ethereum Foundation Blog. Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 November 4, 2026. "Complaint and Jury Demand, Fulton v. Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, No. 1:26-cv-05818-TPO". U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (via CourtListener). Retrieved November 10, 2026.
- ↑ Ethereum Foundation Board (March 13, 2026). "The Promise of Ethereum: Introducing the EF Mandate". Ethereum Foundation Blog. Retrieved November 10, 2026.