In May, prominent Ethereum figure David Hoffman publicly liquidated his ETH holdings, signaling strong dissatisfaction with the Ethereum Foundation's management. Over a month later, the community's anticipated "new organizational structure" has finally emerged.
On the evening of June 22, five former Ethereum Foundation members — Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma — officially announced the launch of Ethlabs, an independent non-profit R&D lab. The lab currently accepts donations in ETH, stablecoins, and ERC-20 tokens.
Ethlabs' Mission: Making Ethereum the Global Settlement Backbone
According to Ethlabs' official website, the lab is a non-profit research and development organization focused on the Ethereum ecosystem, with the mission of making Ethereum the settlement layer for the global economy. The team argues that the internet achieved globalization because universal protocols created a common language for all networks, and the financial industry is now at a similar inflection point — as value, assets, and markets go fully digital, a shared settlement infrastructure is urgently needed.
Ethlabs cites three reasons why Ethereum is uniquely positioned to serve as this neutral base layer: Credible neutrality — a decade of stable, uninterrupted operation with minimal counterparty risk, controlled by no single entity; ETH as a base asset — a programmable store of value with broad distribution and deep on-chain liquidity; and a rich developer and DeFi ecosystem — an open market for trading, lending, and collaboration accessible to all.
Bridging Front-End Developers and Core Protocols
Ethlabs positions itself as a bridge between front-line developers and the underlying protocol. It translates real needs from ordinary users, dApps, wallets, Layer 2 networks, infrastructure teams, institutions, and core developers into protocol upgrades, common standards, and deployable products. "We interface with all stakeholders and ultimately convert their demands into protocol optimizations, industry standards, and products ready for launch," the team stated.
Among the founding team, Dietrichs and Monnot are among the most cited researchers in Ethereum protocol studies over the past decade. Dietrichs has long worked on Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS), while Monnot is known for MEV research and cryptoeconomic mechanism design through the EF's Robust Incentives Group. Schwarz-Schilling, Rudolf, and Ma bring deep expertise in economic modeling, consensus research, and applied cryptography, respectively.
Investors: Bitmine, Joe Lubin Lead; Community Backing
Disclosed backers include Bitmine, Sharplink, and Consensys founder Joe Lubin. Bitmine is the largest corporate ETH treasury holder, with over 5.67 million ETH, and operates its own validator node network MAVAN. Sharplink co-launched the $125 million DeFi fund "Galaxy SharpLink Onchain Yield Fund" with Galaxy. Joe Lubin participates as a core individual backer, and David Hoffman has publicly pledged support.
Other institutional supporters include SNZ, Octant, Anchorage Digital, and investor Konstantin Lomashuk. Community donors include Uniswap's Hayden Adams, Base's Jesse Pollak, Etherealize's Danny Ryan, Ethereum Foundation's Justin Drake and Tim Beiko, Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi, and approximately 50 other contributors.
Organizational Evolution: Toward Multi-Entity Collaboration
According to Ethereum community researcher Aerugo, a spin-off project must meet specific criteria: whether the work is core to the EF's mission, whether the EF would do it internally if capable, and whether an external team can execute without increasing control risks, private interest extraction, or opacity. Ethlabs and the EF share significant research overlap — for example, eliminating MEV is described as "the next important front in the cypherpunk war," an area Dietrichs and Monnot have long studied.
At present, Ethlabs does not necessarily compete directly with the EF. Instead, it signals a shift from a single coordination model to a multi-R&D-entity collaboration. As Ethlabs states: "We operate independently. Ethereum is a public project owned by all builders. Ethlabs is just one node in a vast governance network." The key question ahead is whether multiple research organizations can synergize to propel Ethereum into a more competitive global on-chain settlement infrastructure.