Ethlabs Drops In: Ex-EF Crew Spins Up New R&D Shop While Foundation Trims 20% 🧪

A new non-profit research and development organization called Ethlabs has launched, backed by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, BitMine Immersion Technologies, Sharplink, and more than 50 ecosystem contributors, as the Ethereum Foundation completes a major restructuring that includes the departure of roughly 20% of its workforce. Ethlabs describes its mission as helping make Ethereum "the settlement layer of the global economy" through protocol research, infrastructure development, and adoption-focused initiatives, and positions itself as part of a "multi-node future" in which Ethereum's long-term success depends on a distributed network of organizations rather than a single steward.

The lab was co-founded by five former senior Ethereum Foundation researchers: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf and Julian Ma. Its initial focus is on getting institutions operating on-chain at scale, bridging the work of builders and developers with the underlying protocol. "We sit between two worlds: real usage from the builders at the frontier, and the protocol that has to support it," the organization posted on X, adding that it works with users and developers to "turn what they actually need," into standards and products. Backers and contributors include representatives from Uniswap, Base, Optimism, Eigen Labs, Flashbots, Polygon, Coinbase, Nethermind, ENS and L2Beat, among others. The Ethereum Foundation said in a statement that "the privilege of stewarding Ethereum must not be hoarded, but carefully shared with others committed to building the infrastructure of self-sovereignty."

The launch comes amid a wave of exits from the Foundation. Co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang left her post last week, and former EF contributor Trenton Van Epps warned last week that Ethereum risks entering a "slow-burning funding crisis" amid continued selling of $ETH by the Foundation. On June 23, the Foundation unveiled a new operating structure built around dedicated Protocol, Access, User, Community and Institutional layers, alongside Operations and Management functions, concluding a months-long review of its mandate, treasury management and organizational priorities; 54 employees will leave the organization as part of the process. In May, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the Foundation's resources were limited, noting that the organization only held about 0.16% of the total supply of Ether.

BitMine Chairman Tom Lee, Sharplink and Lubin framed Ethlabs as a response to rising institutional demand. "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," Lee said. "The formation of Ethlabs demonstrates that key stakeholders are stepping up to help ensure Ethereum remains a leading platform for decentralized finance." Lubin said Ethereum "is entering its next stage of evolution" and that there should be "a number of steward nodes of Ethereum" working to grow utilization of the blockchain. "By providing a long-term, independent home to researchers and developers advancing Ethereum's core technology and values, Ethlabs will be instrumental in preparing the network for the next major wave of adoption," he added. Sharplink said Ethlabs was formed to "ready Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption," adding that "as stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI commerce move on-chain, they are converging on Ethereum as the neutral, credibly permissionless settlement layer for the global economy." "Ethlabs exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb that demand at scale," the company said.

Ethlabs Executive Director and co-founder Ansgar Dietrichs posted on X that "this is a unique moment for Ethereum. Adoption is here, the global economy is moving on-chain," and that the organization's goal is to "help Ethereum realize its potential and become the shared global settlement layer." Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi, listed as one of the lab's backers, said that "while the EF is shrinking its mandate and more focused on protecting Ethereum's core properties, a group of EF builders have spun out to create a second org. Its mandate is simple: accelerate Ethereum. Increase adoption. Protect DeFi. Solve the biggest problems and make ETH the currency of the internet." Precise funding details for Ethlabs were not disclosed, and the organization said its funders will not have influence over the research agenda.

The price of $ETH has not reflected the optimism around the announcement, trading around $1,732, up 0.1% in the past 24 hours but down more than 16% over the past month and roughly 65% from its all-time high, levels last seen in October 2023 and April 2025.