Ethlabs has been launched with backing from SharpLink, Bitmine, and Consensys CEO Joe Lubin, amidst a shift in Ethereum's development landscape.
By Krisztian Sandor, Margaux Nijkerk|Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Jun 22, 2026, 7:20 p.m. 2 min readMake preferred on ShareShare this articleCopy linkX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailMake preferred on Joe Lubin at Consensus 2024 by CoinDesk. (Shutterstock/CoinDesk/Suzanne Cordiero)SummaryShow- An independent nonprofit called Ethlabs has been established by five former researchers from the Ethereum Foundation.
- SharpLink and Bitmine, major corporate ETH holders, provide financial support, along with Consensys CEO Joe Lubin.
- This initiative follows a series of significant departures from the Ethereum Foundation.
A new nonprofit research and development organization named Ethlabs has been formed by ex-researchers from the Ethereum Foundation, receiving backing from some of the largest corporate holders of ether as the Ethereum community experiences substantial organizational changes.
Ethlabs, announced on Monday, has secured funding from prominent Ethereum treasury firms including SharpLink Gaming (SBET) and Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), along with support from Joe Lubin, who is both the CEO of Consensys and a co-founder of Ethereum, as well as other contributors such as Anchorage Digital, Octant, and SNZ.
The organization is being led by five former senior contributors from the Ethereum Foundation: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma, as noted in their press release. Their expertise spans various areas, including Ethereum scaling, data availability, protocol economics, and network finality.
This launch occurs during a time of turmoil within the Ethereum Foundation, the Switzerland-based nonprofit responsible for coordinating much of Ethereum's research and development. Recently, co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang announced her resignation, adding to an already growing list of departures from the organization. Earlier this year, both Ma and Monnot were part of the high-profile exits from the foundation.
In this context, Ethlabs is viewed by supporters as indicative of a broader shift towards a "multi-node" development approach, where various independent organizations take on the responsibility for advancing the network rather than depending solely on the Foundation.
Joe Lubin commented, "We are now poised to recognize and implement the idea that there should be a number of steward nodes of Ethereum, each configured in their unique way to evolve and protect what is sacred about the network and massively grow the world's appreciation and utilization of it."
The initial focus of Ethlabs will be on enhancing transaction settlement speed, increasing Ethereum's capacity, and upgrading infrastructure for institutions that are issuing tokenized assets and stablecoins on-chain. Data from RWA.xyz indicates that Ethereum holds a dominant 53% share of the $300 billion stablecoin market and represents about half of the $32 billion market for tokenized assets.
This initiative also mirrors the rising trend of institutional investment in Ethereum. Both SharpLink and Bitmine have developed significant ETH treasury strategies, while Ethereum continues to be the primary platform for stablecoin and tokenized real-world asset issuance.
"Ethereum is at a pivotal moment," stated Ansgar Dietrichs, Ethlabs' executive director. "As blockchain systems rapidly enter mainstream usage, the upcoming years will shape the on-chain economy for decades to come."
He further argued, "Ethereum is uniquely positioned to become the shared base layer of that economy, serving as a neutral foundation for the broader on-chain ecosystem, where users, institutions, and agents can transact and interoperate without intermediaries."
Ethlabs has committed to maintaining an independent research agenda through an external grants administration process, ensuring that funding contributors receive transparency reports without exerting direct control over technical priorities.
All research conducted by Ethlabs will be made publicly available, according to the organization.