Ethlabs, a new nonprofit founded by five former senior Ethereum Foundation researchers, has been launched to help prepare Ethereum for its next phase of institutional-scale adoption. The group is backed by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and two publicly listed ETH treasury companies, Bitmine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink.
Five former Ethereum Foundation researchers form Ethlabs
In a statement released on Monday, Ethlabs said it was founded by Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma. The organization described the team as technical experts who helped guide major Ethereum network upgrades over the past 10 years.
The founders said Ethlabs was created to make sure Ethereum can handle rising institutional demand. Its work will center on network performance and cross-chain interoperability, while also addressing the security, resilience, and privacy standards that enterprise users require. The mandate is narrow, but the target is large.
A new coordination model emerges as the foundation reshapes itself
The launch comes as the Ethereum Foundation continues to go through leadership departures and a broader organizational transition. For years, the foundation served as the ecosystem’s main research and coordination hub. Ethlabs points to a different arrangement now taking shape, one where core developers and large capital holders build external structures to push parts of Ethereum’s roadmap forward.
The foundation has faced criticism from parts of the community and investor base in recent years. Some ETH holders argued it had not done enough to preserve Ethereum’s competitive position in the blockchain sector. At the same time, several senior figures have left or taken leave in recent months, including co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang, Tomasz Stańczak, and multiple leaders from the Protocol Cluster.
Joe Lubin says external groups will focus on scaling and institutional integration
Joe Lubin said Ethereum has entered a new stage. He stated that after the foundation issued a new charter earlier this year and aligned its focus around base-layer priorities such as censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security (CROPS), plans were made to spin out multiple external organizations.
According to Lubin, those groups will each take on specific functions, including user experience improvements, network scalability, and engagement with traditional institutions. Ethlabs is the first group to step out publicly. Bitmine and SharpLink, which support the nonprofit, are also described as the world’s two largest publicly listed ETH treasury companies, holding 5.7 million ETH and 876,000 ETH, respectively.