MetaMask Co-Founder Dan Finlay Departs Consensys; ERC-7715 Debuts

Dan Finlay, a co-founder and longtime developer of MetaMask, announced Wednesday that it is his last day at Consensys. He cited burnout after a decade working on the wallet and said he plans to spend time with his family. In a post on X he wrote, “Wishing the team the best — they have an amazing road ahead of them.”

Finlay co-founded MetaMask with Aaron Davis in 2016 under Consensys and served as a principal developer. MetaMask began as an Ethereum browser extension and mobile wallet and expanded support beyond EVM-compatible chains to include Bitcoin and Tron.

Finlay highlighted the rollout of Advanced Permissions, described in developer documentation as ERC-7715. The feature lets decentralized applications request specific, limited permissions so they can execute transactions on a user’s behalf without the user approving every action.

The documentation provides an example: a user can grant a dApp permission to spend 10 USDC per day to buy ETH over the course of a month. Once the permission is granted, the dApp can use the allocated funds directly from the user’s account. The feature is intended for applications that require frequent interactions and would otherwise prompt repeated approvals.

Roman Storm replied to Finlay’s post calling the feature “extremely important” and wrote that ERC-7715 brings recurring payment capabilities similar to those offered by card networks.

Over time MetaMask added features including integrated prediction markets and tokenized stock trading, and launched a payment card with Mastercard that pays cashback in the platform’s mUSD stablecoin.

Finlay did not specify his next professional steps beyond taking time with his family.