According to a report by Decrypt, a new nonprofit research and development organization called Ethlabs has been established by former Ethereum Foundation researchers. It has secured financial backing from Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, as well as BitMine and Sharplink. In addition, more than 50 ecosystem contributors have been listed as community supporters, reflecting broad industry endorsement of the organization's mission.
Focus on Institutional Adoption and AI Agent Protocols
Ethlabs' core mission is to help Ethereum become the "settlement layer for the global economy." To achieve this, the organization will concentrate on driving large-scale institutional on-chain adoption, while also providing protocol support for AI agent applications. The team, composed of former Ethereum Foundation researchers, brings deep protocol development expertise.
According to its roadmap, Ethlabs will position itself between "real-world usage needs" and "protocol development," acting as a bridge to translate the practical demands of frontier builders into standardized protocols and deployable products. This approach is expected to accelerate Ethereum's transition from theoretical exploration to real-world application, particularly in areas such as financial settlement and the AI agent economy.