# Five Departed Ethereum Researchers Launch Ethlabs, Turning a Funding Gap Into a Contest Over Who Steers the Network

Backed by Joe Lubin, Bitmine and Sharplink, the new nonprofit reframes Ethereum's research crisis as a fight over money, neutrality and ether's monetary role.

- Published: 2026-06-23T10:27:12.108Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/crypto/2026-06-23/five-departed-ethereum-researchers-launch-ethlabs-turning-a
- Publisher: Polylog (Crypto desk)
- Section: crypto
- Sources: [CryptoSlate](https://cryptoslate.com/ethereums-post-foundation-era-is-starting-with-an-eth-value-bet/), [crypto.news](https://crypto.news/who-pays-for-ethereum-foundation-funding-community-asks/)

Five senior researchers who left the Ethereum Foundation have formed [Ethlabs](https://cryptoslate.com/ethereums-post-foundation-era-is-starting-with-an-eth-value-bet/), an independent nonprofit research and development (R&D) lab whose stated mission is to make Ethereum the settlement layer of the global economy. The co-founders, Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf and Julian Ma, include several of the most-cited authors of Ethereum's proposer-builder separation and maximal extractable value (MEV) research over the past decade.

The launch is funded by Consensys founder Joe Lubin and by the corporate ether treasury companies Bitmine and Sharplink, [according to the founders](https://www.cryptopolitan.com/five-former-ethereum-foundation-researchers-launch-ethlabs/), with additional backing from Anchorage, Octant, SNZ and more than fifty community participants. Ethlabs says its first work targets faster settlement, native asset issuance, cross-chain interoperability, mainnet capacity and research into ether's monetary properties.

The launch reflects a year of departures from the Ethereum Foundation and a parallel argument about money. The Foundation's spending and the groups it funds, including Ethlabs predecessors such as Argot, have [drawn community scrutiny](https://crypto.news/who-pays-for-ethereum-foundation-funding-community-asks/) as ether's weak price keeps users focused on costs and on the gap between the network's heavy use and its token's value. Ethereum carries roughly $38.47 billion of the $72.31 billion locked in decentralized finance across all chains, by far the largest base-layer position, even as the token's price stays weak.

The underlying tension is direct. Funding from treasury companies whose balance sheets depend on a higher ether price ties protocol research to a price thesis, which supporters call alignment and skeptics call capture. Both readings will be tested by what Ethlabs actually delivers.

## What this means

Ethereum's core research is moving from a single foundation toward competing, sponsor-funded labs. That can speed delivery of the scaling and settlement roadmap, but it concentrates influence in entities that profit when ether rises, raising the question of whether protocol neutrality survives its new funding model.

## What to watch

- Whether Ethlabs publishes concrete roadmap proposals that go through open Ethereum Improvement Proposal review rather than private sponsor channels, which would show the lab is additive rather than a parallel power center.
- How the Ethereum Foundation responds on funding and headcount, since further senior departures would signal that influence has shifted to outside labs.