Ethlabs Founded, Treasury Companies to Fund Ethereum Post-EF
Former Ethereum Foundation (EF) core researchers Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma announced the launch of Ethlabs, an independent non-profit R&D lab focused on Ethereum core protocol research and institutional-grade infrastructure. The initiative, backed by over 50 community participants including ETH treasury companies BitMine and Sharplink, Joseph Lubin, Hayden Adams, and Jesse Pollak, aims to make Ethereum the global economic settlement layer.
This move comes amidst significant pressure on the EF, which has seen key departures and a strategic narrowing of its focus. A critical funding gap of approximately $30 million annually for core client development, following the expiration of the client incentive program, poses a near-term risk to the network's development.
The context includes the evolution of ETH's value narrative. While mechanisms like EIP-1559 and the Merge previously supported the "ultrasound money" thesis, the success of L2 scaling via EIP-4844 has drastically reduced L1 fee revenue, leading to net ETH issuance and challenging that narrative. Ethlabs has listed ETH monetary economics as a primary research focus.
Backing from corporate ETH treasuries like BitMine and Sharplink represents a strategic alignment, as these entities' asset values are directly tied to Ethereum's health and adoption. Their support is an investment rather than a pure donation.
Ethereum's governance is shifting from a centralized EF model to a distributed network of specialized "manager nodes," including Ethlabs and a streamlined EF. While this promotes efficiency and reduces single-point failure risk, it introduces new challenges in coordination, priority alignment, and filling critical funding gaps across the decentralized ecosystem.
Foresight News06/23 06:50
