Laying the groundwork for the next decade—Ethlabs officially launched

Ethereum Zhu, Golden Finance

Summary: On June 23, the non-profit research and development organization Ethlabs, initiated by former senior researcher of the Ethereum Foundation, officially launched, supported by Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Sharplink, Joe Lubin, Anchorage, Octant, SNZ, and others. Its goal is to promote Ethereum into an institutional "super cycle."

1. What is Ethlabs

Today, Ethlabs announced its establishment. Ethlabs is an independent non-profit R&D organization aimed at preparing for the next phase of institutional applications on Ethereum.

Ethlabs aims to ensure that the Ethereum network can meet the large-scale demands of stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds, and autonomous AI trading transferring onto the Ethereum chain, promote rapid development and trustworthy interoperability of Ethereum, so that institutions building on Ethereum can gain the necessary neutrality, resilience, privacy, and security.

Ethlabs was co-founded by five former senior researchers of the Ethereum Foundation: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma. Ethlabs brings together researchers who have made key contributions in finality, scalability, data availability, virtual machines, and protocol economics—these technical experts have led Ethereum’s most significant upgrades over the past decade. This plan provides them with an exclusive institutional platform for their R&D work, with stable, long-term funding support.

This official announcement reflects the natural evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem. As the Ethereum Foundation refocuses on its core mission and embraces a multi-node future, Ethlabs, as one of many independent organizations, is advancing the development of the Ethereum network in parallel. Early work at Ethlabs will focus on the needs of large-scale on-chain institutions: faster settlement speeds, native issuance, cross-chain transactions based on robust infrastructure, mainnet capacity, and research laying the foundation for ETH’s monetary properties.

2. Why now?

Why is Ethlabs emerging at this moment? The answer is in the official announcement: “As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds, and autonomous AI trading transfer onto the chain, they are converging on Ethereum, making it the neutral, trustworthy, permissionless settlement layer for the global economy.”

As traditional finance and crypto finance become increasingly intertwined, the founding of Ethlabs is timely.

First, stablecoins are becoming the backbone of global financial infrastructure. Previously, one of the main uses of stablecoins was for crypto transaction settlement. But since 2024, stablecoins are shifting toward roles in global payments. With the passage of Hong Kong’s “Stablecoin Regulations” and the US “GENIUS Act,” stablecoins are moving from the gray area into a regulated mainstream financial system. Circle’s USDC is increasingly used by payment and financial institutions for cross-border settlement, while Tether’s USDT has become a key source of dollar liquidity in emerging markets worldwide. Ethereum has maintained its core settlement layer position amid the rise of stablecoins, but now faces new challenges: can it support institutional-grade security standards, is transaction confirmation speed sufficient, can it enable trustworthy cross-chain interoperability… As mentioned above, Ethlabs’ early work will focus on settlement speed, cross-chain transactions, mainnet capacity, and related issues.

Second, RWA (Real-World Assets) are driving large-scale on-chain adoption in traditional finance. BlackRock has launched a tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, which quickly grew into one of the largest on-chain government bond funds globally, seen as a significant step for traditional finance embracing blockchain. Additionally, Franklin Templeton launched the OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) as early as 2021, becoming one of the earliest large asset managers to record fund shares on a public blockchain. JPMorgan, through its Onyx blockchain platform and tokenized deposit network Kinexys (formerly JPM Coin), continues to test on-chain settlement capabilities for bonds, repurchase agreements, and cross-border payments. For traditional financial institutions, RWA can improve liquidity, reduce operational costs, and enhance settlement efficiency. They are also increasingly concerned about whether the underlying infrastructure can support long-term governance and global liquidity. Ethlabs focuses on finality, scalability, data availability, virtual machines, and protocol economics—precisely the areas these traditional institutions need.

Finally, with the rise of AI, AI Agents participating in financial activities is becoming a future trend—“autonomous AI trading moving onto the chain” is a new issue Ethereum researchers are considering. Vitalik has publicly discussed the long-term potential of combining AI and blockchain multiple times. For example, in February this year, Vitalik wrote about “The Path to Ethereum and AI Fusion,” proposing to make Ethereum an economic layer for AI-related interactions, including: application interface call settlement; collaboration and employment among robot agents; establishing margin mechanisms, and potentially building more complex on-chain dispute resolution mechanisms; implementing ERC8004 protocol; and constructing reputation systems in AI. Additionally, in 2024, Vitalik published an article titled “The Prospects and Challenges of Cryptocurrency + AI Applications.” Ethlabs emphasizes that AI Agents are not just riding current hot narratives but are building the infrastructure for the future AI Agent economy.

3. Will Ethlabs affect ETH’s market?

In the short term, it obviously will not impact ETH’s price. ETH has fallen 2.94% in the past 24 hours, currently at $1,692.22.

But in the long run, Ethlabs can enhance Ethereum’s potential as a financial infrastructure: stablecoins need a trustworthy underlying network; RWA issuers require long-term governable infrastructure; AI Agents need unified settlement standards… Ethlabs’s significance is not in short-term ETH price increases but in building infrastructure for the next decade.

4. Industry experts’ opinions

• Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder and CEO of Consensys, said: “Ethereum is entering the next stage of development. We are now ready to recognize and implement the idea that multiple Ethereum management nodes should exist, each configured in a unique way to develop and protect the network’s core values, and significantly enhance global awareness and usage of Ethereum. Supported by institutions like Sharplink, Bitmine, and others, Ethlabs, as the latest organization emerging from the Ethereum Foundation (EF), is transforming into a key node in the ‘Responsible Ethereum Governance and Management’ network. Ethlabs provides a long-term independent platform for researchers and developers committed to advancing Ethereum’s core technology and values, which will be crucial as the network faces the next wave of large-scale applications—from institutional finance to proxy commerce. Ethlabs will possess the scale, security, interoperability, and resilience needed by global institutions. Now and in the future, the Ethereum ecosystem will become more decentralized, with each manager more focused and powerful, making it even stronger.”*

• Bread from MegaETH, one of Ethlabs’ earliest community supporters, said: “This is a group of long-term core contributors uniting outside EF to solve the issues everyone has been calling for recently: value accumulation and recognition of application blockchain PMF (e.g., DeFi). Ethlabs and EF can now form a whole: idealism and pragmatism working hand in hand to strengthen the network.”*

• Ansgar Dietrichs, Executive Director of Ethlabs, said: “Ethereum is at a critical moment. Ten years of uninterrupted operation and trustworthy neutrality have earned it the trust of global users and institutions. As blockchain systems rapidly move toward mainstream applications, the next few years will determine the future landscape of on-chain economies for decades. Ethereum has unique advantages and is expected to become the shared foundational layer of this economy, building a neutral cornerstone for a broader on-chain ecosystem where users, institutions, and agents can transact and interoperate without intermediaries. The founding of Ethlabs aims to help Ethereum realize this potential. As a long-term contributor to the core protocol, we are establishing an independent non-profit organization to promote Ethereum’s core technology and develop shared standards and infrastructure for builders. We are excited to continue advancing this work at this critical moment.”*

• Thomas Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine, said: “We believe Ethereum’s applications in institutional and AI agent fields will see significant growth. Of course, to support this growth, the Ethereum ecosystem needs to substantially increase investment in talent and research. The founding of Ethlabs shows that key stakeholders are actively taking action to ensure Ethereum maintains its leadership in decentralized finance. We believe the digital asset ecosystem is gaining positive momentum, and initiatives like this will solidify the foundation and help the community push Ethereum into its next development stage. As an important institutional participant in the Ethereum ecosystem, Bitmine is pleased to contribute to Ethereum’s long-term development and support builders, researchers, and innovators shaping Ethereum’s future.”*

• Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink, said: “We are at the beginning of Ethereum’s institutional super cycle, and the researchers behind Ethlabs are the ones preparing the network to carry this cycle. Over the past decade, they have quietly shaped Ethereum, providing a stable, independent platform for their work, which is one of our most meaningful contributions to the ecosystem. We hold ETH because we believe in the network’s future, and supporting those pushing its development at the protocol layer is the most direct way to express that belief. This is responsible management: leveraging our influence to promote the next wave of institutional adoption and strengthen the foundational layer of the on-chain economy. Sharplink is honored to collaborate with our ecosystem partners to build Ethlabs.”