On June 22nd, five former senior researchers at the Ethereum Foundation announced Ethlabs, an independent nonprofit research and development laboratory with the mission of making Ethereum the payments layer of the global economy.
Co-founders Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabe Monot, Kaspar Schwartz-Schilling, Josh Rudolph, and Julian Marr envisioned the launch around the protocol Ethereum and the asset ETH.
Although their announcement named ETH “the most valuable and programmable store of value” and listed research into the monetary nature of ETH among Ethlabs’ early areas of work, the foundation avoided directly taking this stance in its traditional trust neutrality framework.
The list of backers includes Bitmine and Sharplink, two ETH treasury companies whose public market story relies on ETH being treated as institutional-grade capital, and are listed as backers alongside Joseph Rubin, Anchorage, Octant, and SNZ.
Funders are accountable but have no control over the research agenda, with ultimate direction left to Ethlabs leadership, quarterly reporting, and independent annual audits.
| Ethlabs components | what it shows | why is it important |
|---|---|---|
| founder | 5 former senior researchers at the Ethereum Foundation | Give credibility to your lab protocol and make it part of the EF successor story |
| mission | Make Ethereum the payment layer of the global economy | Assemble Ethlab around deployment, not just maintenance of public goods. |
| ETH language | Calls ETH a programmable store of value and includes currency research for ETH | Make the acquisition of ETH value explicit in a way that EF has avoided so far |
| patron | BitMine, SharpLink, Joe Lubin, Anchorage, Octant, SNZ | Demonstrates support from power centers of capital, institutions and ecosystems aligned with ETH |
| Governance guardrails | Funders are accountable, but not in control. Ethlabs sets the research agenda | Addressing key legitimacy risks: non-sponsored capital-backed stewardship |
The vacuum Ethlabs is entering
Former EF contributor Trent Van Epps published an essay arguing that the Foundation successfully communicates that it should not be the sole center of power in Ethereum, but does not clearly define who will take over responsibility in the event of an exit.
He warned that a funding crisis for core protocols could occur within three to nine months, estimating that core capacity would require around $30 million annually across client teams, research and coordination.
Van Epps pointed out that the EF needs to completely reset the social, political and economic contracts between its stakeholders, and the scope goes far beyond reducing its own footprint.
This is consistent with what was revealed through individual departures prior to Ethlabs’ announcement. Several co-founders directly posted that they were leaving EF to join new institutes.
Yuga Kohler said he regrets seeing the Foundation’s dysfunction and seeing it lose leaders faster than they can replace their successors. Danclad Feist said those leaving still believed in the EF’s stated strategy and blamed management execution for the failure.
Ethlabs is one answer to the funding and legitimacy gap described by Van Epps. An independent institute founded by former EF researchers, it focuses on specific areas where EF’s remit has widened its exposure.
Acquiring ETH value is the goal of the protocol
The ETH treasury company currently funds Ethereum’s research and development, and its business model creates a clear alignment between the protocol’s success and the ETH price.
BitMine revealed in a release filed with the SEC in June 2026 that its ETH staking revenue is approximately $258 million annually. If a company like BitMine were to allocate even a portion of its staking revenue to public goods research, the calculations would cover a significant portion of the $30 million in annual core development that Van Epps cited.
By funding Ethereum’s research and development, ETH treasury companies become actors in Ethereum’s political economy and are incentivized to drive the protocol towards outcomes that increase ETH’s institutional utility through payment finality, monetary transparency, and depth of DeFi liquidity.
Mark Zeller responded that even if EF hits a wall, Ethereum will be fine because someone else will take over the job.
Haseeb Qureshi framed the plan from the venture side, with EF Construction being spun out while the foundation narrowed its mandate. Joe Lubin described the new structure as a network of “steward nodes,” or a multi-node future, which is exactly the wording of Ethlabs’ own announcement.
According to data from DefiLlama, Ethereum has a stablecoin market cap of approximately $157 billion and an RWA active market cap of approximately $14.9 billion. Stablecoins, tokenized assets, DeFi, and ultimately commerce powered by AI agents all require neutral payments infrastructure.
Ethereum’s ETH-affiliated funders are backing Ethe Labs because their holdings will increase in value if Ethereum wins an institutional settlement and the preferred base layer holds its position against competing L1 or L2.
What is the case for bulls and bears?
For the bull, Ethlabs appears to be the first real organizational solution to the Van Epps succession problem.
Former EF researchers bring credibility to the protocol, capital partnered with ETH brings funding and urgency, and a non-profit organization with independent governance prevents research questions from being captured by a single sponsor.
If a multi-node management model generates coordinated research and development without the acquisition of a roadmap, Ethereum gains execution capabilities while maintaining a trusted neutrality that makes it defensible as a global payments infrastructure.
ETH is becoming easier to underwrite as institutional collateral. This is because the protocol has supporters who are explicitly funded by its financial nature, and researchers are conducting research that EF refuses to name.
In the bearish case, legitimacy follows the money, and with ETH finance companies, DeFi founders, L2, investors, and former EF researchers all funding different parts of Ethereum’s roadmap, there is no clear answer as to who will decide what counts as “Ethereum work”.
With EF’s soft power in focus, Ethlabs may solve its funding gap while opening up governance rifts. Ethereum has moved from one soft power center to many soft power centers, making it formally more decentralized but difficult to coordinate in the event of a roadmap dispute.
Observers will ask whether Ethereum has replaced the influence of foundations with a more decentralized network of capital-backed administrative nodes, while organizing around the capture of ETH value as a common goal.
On the same day that Ethlabs announced its plans, its chief strategic advisor announced a framework for evaluating and funding the spinout, suggesting that the foundation would actively manage the transition and that Ethlabs would have a sanctioned role in the intended handover.
If EF and Ethlabs-type organizations end up competing for legitimacy on the same protocol decisions, the risk of governance fragmentation increases faster than the funding gap narrows.
what happens next
Ethereum’s public discussion is already moving toward an openly pro-ETH framework in a way that foundations rarely do.
Ethlabs names ETH a programmable store of value and cites ETH currency research as a core work. This language was unusual in the traditional EF stance.
That stance is expected to create friction as the broader Ethereum community debates whether optimizing for ETH value capture and optimizing for reliable neutrality are compatible or competing goals.
The conditions that created Ethlabs, such as EF shrinkage, lack of funding, and institutional capital seeking protocol-adjacent profits, will likely spawn more organizations like it.
The test of Ethereum’s multi-node management model is whether those nodes can coordinate without refocusing around new funders who happen to hold large ETH positions.
Van Epps points out that the problem of subtraction without inheritance creates a vacuum, and Ethlabs is the first serious attempt to fill it. How the tension between ETH’s investability and Ethereum’s neutrality is overcome will determine whether the model holds or not.
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