Ethlabs Enters the Chat: New R&D Lab Wants to Make Ethereum Wall Street's Favorite Chain 😎

Ethlabs, a new non-profit research and development organization founded by former Ethereum Foundation researchers, has launched with funding from the largest publicly traded Ethereum treasury firms, BitMine Immersion Technologies and Sharplink, as well as Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. More than 50 ecosystem contributors are listed as community supporters, including participants from layer-2 networks, venture capital, and decentralized projects on Ethereum. (Disclaimer: Lubin, through Consensys, and Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee are investors in Dastan, the parent company of Decrypt.)

Ethlabs Executive Director and co-founder Ansgar Dietrichs framed the initiative in a post on X, stating, "The core belief: This is a unique moment for Ethereum. Adoption is here, the global economy is moving on-chain," and added, "We want to help Ethereum realize its potential and become the shared global settlement layer." The launch comes one week after Ethereum Foundation co-director Hsiao-Wei Wang left her post, extending a wave of exits from the organization principally responsible for promoting the network's development.

Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine, said in a statement, "We believe Ethereum is positioned to grow significantly in adoption by institutions and by AI agents. And naturally, the ecosystem needs to dramatically expand its investment in talent and research to support this growth," adding that "The formation of Ethlabs demonstrates that key stakeholders are stepping up to help ensure Ethereum remains a leading platform for decentralized finance." The lab's founding researchers previously contributed to efforts in finality, scaling, and protocol economics, and its initial focus will be on enabling institutions to operate on-chain at scale.

"We sit between two worlds: real usage from the builders at the frontier, and the protocol that has to support it," Ethlabs posted on X, noting that it works with users and developers to convert real-world needs into standards and products. The organization's funders will not have influence over its research agenda, according to the announcement, and precise funding details were not disclosed. Last month, former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrand Fiest, who recently joined Stripe's stablecoin network Tempo, suggested that a new group could "save Ethereum" if it economically aligned itself with the network and its native token, $ETH.

$ETH traded around $1,732 following the news, up 0.1% over the previous 24 hours but down more than 16% over the prior month and roughly 65% below its prior all-time high.