Author: Nancy, PANews
In the post-foundation era, Ethereum is welcoming a new champion.
On June 23, several former EF researchers announced the formation of Ethlabs, a nonprofit research and development organization widely regarded by the community as a crucial successor to EF. The organization has received broad support from the Ethereum ecosystem, including funding backing from Ethereum DAT companies BitMine and Sharplink, as well as Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin.
Former EF core members have started a new venture, backed by BitMine, the largest ETH treasury.
As the Ethereum Foundation (EF) gradually steps back into the background, discussions within the community about “who will take up the mantle” continue to intensify.
Early this morning, the independent nonprofit research and development organization Ethlabs was announced. Unlike the EF’s gradual withdrawal from its central role in the ecosystem, Ethlabs is more focused on core protocol development, infrastructure building, and product deployment, aiming to position Ethereum as the global economic settlement layer and accelerate large-scale institutional adoption on-chain.
Ethlabs was co-founded by Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma. All five previously worked at the Ethereum Foundation and left in succession during the first half of 2026.
During their tenure at EF, they actively contributed to research and development in key Ethereum technical areas, including finality mechanisms, scalability, data availability, EVM and zkEVM optimization, protocol economics, and L1/L2 interoperability, making them significant contributors to Ethereum protocol evolution.
In addition to the core team’s background drawing attention, Ethlabs’ support roster is equally impressive. The initiative is currently backed by over 50 ecosystem contributors, including DeFi developers, Ethereum core developers, L2 network teams, and venture capital firms.
More notably, Ethlabs has received funding support from Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, as well as two Ethereum DAT companies: BitMine and Sharplink. BitMine holds approximately 5.67 million ETH, accounting for about 4.7% of the total supply, while Sharplink holds around 870,000 ETH. As one of the largest ETH treasuries in the current market, BitMine not only possesses ETH reserves far exceeding those of the Ethereum Foundation but has also been regarded by the community as a significant force in Ethereum’s transition into an institutional era, and was once among the most widely supported candidates to become the next community leader.
From team background and financial strength to ecosystem support, the Ethlabs community is regarded as the most promising new force in the post-EF era.
EF steps into the background as Ethereum enters the era of ecosystem alliances.
In addition to Ethlabs, numerous grassroots organizations have joined Ethereum’s ecosystem development. Over the past two years, a number of institutions focused on diverse areas have emerged, spanning protocol research, infrastructure development, and expansion of the application ecosystem.
Back in October 2024, members of the Ethereum Foundation launched the nonprofit research group Argot Collective, focused on maintaining free and independent software related to Ethereum. In 2025, the EF subsequently announced three years of operational funding to support the development of the Solidity language and other critical open-source infrastructure.
In March this year, with funding from the Ethereum Foundation, Gnosis and Zisk jointly launched the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) to enhance collaboration efficiency among Ethereum’s L2 networks, reduce the time and cost of cross-network transfers, and improve the interaction experience for developers and users in the multi-chain ecosystem.
One month later, the Ethereum Applications Guild (EAG) was officially established, jointly initiated by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Xiao Feng, Chairman of HashKey Group, with the goal of advancing the application-layer ecosystem and accelerating Ethereum’s transition from an infrastructure stage to an applications stage. The organization will focus on four key areas: promoting the deployment of real-world applications, connecting cross-sector ecosystem networks, establishing unified evaluation and development frameworks, and building a sustainable funding mechanism. EAG will operate on a membership contribution system based on institutional scale (such as valuation, market capitalization, or AUM), and will channel a portion of ETH staking rewards into an ecosystem growth fund through a staking reward donation mechanism.
From Argot Collective to EEZ, then to EAG and the newly established Ethlabs, these organizations each cover different aspects such as research and development, infrastructure, cross-chain collaboration, and application ecosystems. They are not replacements for the EF, but rather assume responsibilities that were previously heavily dependent on the foundation’s initiatives.
According to Azeem, co-founder of the privacy blockchain Miden, those who have left the foundation are forming genuinely Ethereum-aligned new organizations, not just offering verbal support. These new organizations are able to secure better funding and draw social capital away from the foundation, creating a kind of “external coup” effect. Over the coming months, more former Ethereum Foundation teams will raise funding and execute according to the Ethereum roadmap, which is positive for the entire ecosystem.
As more similar organizations join in the future, Ethereum’s development will shift from being driven solely by the Foundation to a collaborative effort involving multiple stakeholders. This marks Ethereum’s transition from the “Foundation Era” to the “Ecosystem Alliance Era,” bringing greater resilience and innovative vitality.
Again embroiled in governance and funding controversies, EF responds by reaffirming its mission over market appeasement.
Community interest in Ethereum’s new leadership stems, in part, from longstanding dissatisfaction with the Ethereum Foundation’s (EF) management model. Recently, the EF has again faced external criticism over issues such as fund management, utilization of liquidity reserves, and talent attrition.
Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), recently noted that the Ethereum Foundation held a strong hand. In his view, the foundation could have simply demonstrated basic budget management skills, allocated funds wisely, and used its reserve assets as collateral to support genuinely valuable ecosystem projects. He also believes that the Ethereum PoS transition took too long; had the upgrade not been completed within the expected timeline, the foundation could have staked a significant portion of its held ETH to generate continuous staking rewards, enabling long-term, sustainable self-sufficiency.
Former EF member Trent Van Epps bluntly stated that while EF’s long-standing subtraction strategy aimed to reduce the foundation’s direct influence on the ecosystem, in practice, the foundation still maintains significant institutional influence through branding, credibility, funding, core developer employment relationships, and media resources. With the Ethereum Foundation’s treasury continuing to shrink and the client incentive program set to expire in April 2026 without a replacement, he warned that the ecosystem could face a slowly unfolding protocol funding crisis within the next three to nine months, undermining core development, research, and coordination capabilities—and impacting the ability to address long-term challenges such as scalability and quantum computing resistance.
In his view, the Ethereum Foundation will not be the primary steward of Ethereum over the next decade; the ecosystem must urgently explore new social, political, and economic contracts to clarify governance responsibilities for shared resources such as software, networks, and assets, and establish scalable, accountable, and neutral funding mechanisms to support Ethereum’s future scaling, maintenance, and institutional succession.
To promote the continued growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, the community is also exploring alternative solutions. For instance, Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, recently noted that Ethereum’s treasury currently holds approximately 7% of the ETH supply, generating around $500 million annually in staking rewards. These revenues could be directly used to fund core development, grants, public goods, and ecosystem building, rather than relying on the Ethereum Foundation. He also emphasized that the likelihood of an Ethereum funding crisis is zero, stating, “The funds are already in place.”
In response to market controversy, EF’s interim co-CEO Bastian Aue recently published a post reiterating the foundation’s mission. He emphasized that EF exists to ensure Ethereum becomes and remains a truly permissionless, autonomous infrastructure with characteristics such as censorship resistance, resistance to capital and state capture, privacy, and security—rather than pursuing the foundation’s own influence, catering to short-term speculators, or endorsing ecosystem projects.
Meanwhile, Bastian Aue revealed that MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) could become the next front in the crypto war. The EF will prioritize reducing order flow monopolies, minimizing extractive MEV, enhancing transaction inclusivity, and exploring open order flow solutions to prevent Ethereum from remaining permissionless in form while being effectively controlled by private order flows, Builder Cartels, or intermediary supply chains. Additionally, Aerugo stated that privacy should be a default feature of Ethereum, not an optional add-on; the EF is also gradually shifting employee compensation and key financial relationships toward ETH and compliant Ethereum-native stablecoins to encourage the team to directly use and experience Ethereum ecosystem products.
Regarding recent controversies surrounding EF staff departures, the reasons cited include strategic disagreements, role fit, normal organizational changes, or personal choices. EF will not discuss individual personnel matters on social media, but emphasizes that departing employees should be afforded a dignified exit. If public statements significantly mislead the public’s understanding of EF’s direction or decisions, the foundation may clarify matters at the policy and factual level, but will not publicize personal issues. As for the criteria EF uses to allocate funds to external teams, he acknowledged that the judgment is based on whether the work is mission-critical, whether there is a more suitable executing party, and whether it can be accomplished without increasing capture risk or dependency—not merely because the team was previously part of EF.
However, EF’s strategic reorganization has also received considerable support within the community. For instance, Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale, believes that, in the long term, the current institutional adjustments by the Ethereum Foundation are beneficial for Ethereum, primarily for two reasons: first, more development work will shift to commercial organizations, reducing the foundation’s development responsibilities and potentially encouraging greater involvement from commercial entities, thereby enhancing overall ecosystem efficiency; second, the structural adjustment helps uphold Ethereum’s core principles as a digital currency infrastructure—a more clearly defined and focused Ethereum Foundation is better positioned to ensure Ethereum continues to adhere to the CROPS principles necessary for building a robust digital currency. He noted that if the Ethereum Foundation reduces its direct involvement in ecosystem development and instead focuses on preserving Ethereum’s long-term core objectives, it could strengthen ETH’s positioning as a decentralized digital asset infrastructure.
The founder of Etherealize believes that EF’s deliberate “step back” is not a governance flaw, but a crucial design principle of a decentralized system. The underlying infrastructure of the future financial system should not be dominated or controlled by any single entity; instead, the foundation’s more important role is to uphold the network’s core values—including security, censorship resistance, privacy protection, and open standards—while continuously advancing long-term technical directions such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and quantum resistance.
Overall, the gradual withdrawal of EF from the role of ecosystem execution center has become a trend; Ethereum’s next phase of research and evolution will rely more on the dynamic balance and self-organized optimization of multiple stakeholders within the ecosystem.