Joe Lubin, Bitmine and SharpLink back Ethlabs

Five former senior researchers from the Ethereum Foundation launched Ethlabs on Monday. The nonprofit lists Joe Lubin, Bitmine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink among its initial backers.

Ethlabs said its first work will focus on what institutions need to move onchain at scale, targeting throughput, interoperability, privacy and security to support stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, investment funds and autonomous AI commerce.

In its launch statement, Ethlabs wrote: “As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI commerce move onchain, they are converging on Ethereum. Ethlabs exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb that demand at scale, advancing a faster Ethereum with trustworthy interoperability, so institutions building on Ethereum can do so with the neutrality, resilience, privacy and security they require.”

In the same statement, Joe Lubin wrote that “Ethereum is entering its next stage of evolution” and proposed “a number of steward nodes of Ethereum, each configured in their unique way to evolve and protect what is sacred about the network and massively grow the worlds appreciation and utilization of it.”

The announcement lists Bitmine holdings at roughly 5.7 million ETH and SharpLink holdings at about 876,000 ETH, describing both firms as the largest publicly traded Ethereum digital asset treasuries.

Ethlabs will operate independently of the Ethereum Foundation. Earlier this year the Foundation narrowed its mandate to focus on censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security technologies, and the organization saw the departures of two co-executive directors and leadership in its Protocol Cluster.

Founders expect other organizations outside the Foundation to pursue usability, scalability and institutional outreach. The group said Ethlabs will concentrate on research and engineering work to enable large-scale institutional activity while preserving network neutrality and security.

Tom Lee, Bitmine chairman, commented that “Ethereum is positioned to grow significantly in adoption by institutions and by AI agents” and added that the ecosystem must expand investment in talent and research to support that growth.