Parity Technologies announced plans to switch Parity's Ethereum client to a decentralized autonomous organization model. This decision resulted in a split within the Parity team.

The Parity Ethereum codebase and maintenance will be transitioned to a DAO ownership and maintainer model, Parity Technologies said in a statement in its official blog. The decentralized autonomous organization will work on the basis of a “stake-weighted token system” to promote “a fair, transparent initial distribution of stake in the DAO’s final decision-making process.”

The Ethereum client will also change its name. It will be entitled OpenEthereum.

“We are planning to move Parity Ethereum codebase to a DAO made up of the developers and organizations who depend on our technology and who will take over maintenance. In essence, the "Parity Ethereum" project will be reborn as a new, decentralized project: we'd like to call that project OpenEthereum.”

Parity Technologies promised to discuss its decision with the Ethereum Foundation, ETC Labs, Gnosis, POA Network and others.

The company also announced that the decision is due to the fact the company plans to focus on developing solutions based on the Polkadot blockchain. According to the statement, the team does not have enough workers to solve the routine tasks that arise during the servicing of the Ethereum client.

“We spend an unfortunately large amount of time on relatively mundane maintenance work that could be better done by others in the community if only we had the correct structure set up. Indeed, Parity is increasingly unable to dedicate the level of resources required for even simple maintenance of this project.”

As it turned out later, such a decision met with fierce criticism even within the team itself. Parity key developer Afri Schoedon was fired from the company by Jutta Steiner. According to Schoedon's tweets, Steiner asked him not to write about the company's decision on social networks.

“You threatened me to stop publishing on social media. I respected that and didn't post up till now. Regardless, you terminated my contract with immediate effect and without any further reasoning. As if that's not enough, you message my friends privately telling them I have mental issues. I'm a single dad with two kids now having no income, no social security, and no health insurance since yesterday. If I have any issues, than it's your lack of support. Thanks, Jutta,” wrote Shoeden.

He also added that on 11 November 2019, he sent a letter to Steiner informing her about his disagreement with the new model of the Ethereum client, and also clarified that the company should not have accepted money from the Ethereum Foundation.

In January 2019, the Ethereum Fund (EF) provided a grant worth $5 million to Parity Technologies. The first tranche was intended for open source development, while the subsequent ones were intended for the upcoming developments of the Parity Ethereum client as part of a massive upgrade of the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem. The Parity Technologies said in the statement that the company is likely to stop working on a grant from the Ethereum Foundation.

Polkadot is a blockchain project founded by co-founder of Parity Technologies and Ethereum Gavin Wood.