The new nonprofit R&D lab brings together a group of senior technical collaborators from the Ethereum Foundation to prepare the network for the wave of tiered feature adoption by institutions, agent finance, and DeFi.
Ethlabs will reinforce fundamental commitments to credible neutrality, censorship resistance and security
NEW YORK, June 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A coordinated group of Ethereum ecosystem stewards today announced the launch of Ethlabs, an independent, nonprofit research and development organization formed to prepare Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption. The funding effort is led by Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BMNR), Sharplink, Inc. (NASDAQ: SBET), Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, and other key contributors to the Ethereum ecosystem including Anchorage, Octant, and SNZ.
As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds, and autonomous AI trading move up the chain, they are converging on Ethereum as the neutral and credibly permissionless settlement layer for the global economy. Ethlabs exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb that demand at scale, powering a faster Ethereum with reliable interoperability, so that institutions that build on Ethereum can do so with the neutrality, resilience, privacy and security they need.
Co-founded by five former Ethereum Foundation senior researchers: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf and Julian Ma, Ethlabs brings together researchers responsible for key contributions to finality, scaling, data availability, virtual machine and protocol economics – the technologists who have guided the network through its most significant upgrades over the last decade. This initiative gives that work a dedicated institutional home with stable, long-term funding.
The launch reflects a natural evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem. As the Ethereum Foundation refocuses on its core mandate and embraces a multi-node future, Ethlabs emerges as one of several independent organizations advancing the network in parallel. Ethlabs’ initial work will focus on what institutions need to move on-chain at scale: faster settlement, native issuance and cross-chain movement on robust infrastructure, capacity on the mainnet, and research underlying the monetary properties of ETH.
Thomas “Tom” Lee, president of Bitmine. “We believe Ethereum is positioned to grow significantly in adoption by institutions and AI actors. And naturally, the ecosystem needs to dramatically expand its investment in talent and research to support this growth. The formation of Ethlabs demonstrates that key stakeholders are stepping up to help ensure Ethereum remains a leading platform for decentralized finance. We believe there is positive momentum building in the digital asset ecosystem, and initiatives like this strengthen the foundations of the ecosystem as the community works together to advance the Ethereum’s next chapter. As a major institutional participant in the Ethereum ecosystem, Bitmine is excited to help serve as a steward of Ethereum’s long-term growth and support the dedicated builders, researchers and innovators who are helping shape its future.”
Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink. “We are at the beginning of an institutional supercycle in Ethereum, and the researchers behind this organization are the people who will prepare the network to carry it. They have quietly shaped Ethereum for the better part of a decade, and giving their work a stable, independent home is one of the most significant contributions we can make to the ecosystem. We hold ETH because we believe in what this network is becoming, and supporting the people who drive it at the protocol level is the clearest way we know of to support that belief. Here’s what stewardship looks like responsible: using our position to drive the next wave of institutional adoption and strengthen the foundation on which the entire on-chain economy will be built Sharplink is proud to help bring Ethlabs to life, together with our ecosystem partners.”
Joe Lubin, co-founder and founder of Ethereum and CEO of Consensys. “Ethereum is entering its next stage of evolution. We are now prepared to recognize and implement the idea that there should be a series of Ethereum administrator nodes, each configured in its own unique way to evolve and protect what is sacred about the network and massively increase the appreciation and utilization of it in the world. With the support of Sharplink, Bitmine and many others, Ethlabs is the latest EF origin pool that is being outsourced to become a major node of the “Institutions” network Responsible and Administrators of Ethereum. By providing an independent, long-term home for researchers and developers who advance the technology and core values of Ethereum, Ethlabs will be instrumental in preparing the network for the next big wave of adoption, from institutional finance to agent trading, with the scale, security, interoperability and resilience that global institutions require. Today and in the future, the Ethereum ecosystem will be even more decentralized, enormously stronger, and each administrator will be more focused and empowered.”
Ansgar Dietrichs, CEO of Ethlabs. “Ethereum is at a pivotal moment. A decade of uninterrupted operation and a track record of credible neutrality have earned it the trust of users and institutions around the world. As blockchain systems move rapidly toward widespread use, the coming years will define the shape of the onchain economy for decades. Ethereum is uniquely positioned to become the shared base layer of that economy, the neutral foundation upon which the broader onchain ecosystem is built, where users, institutions and agents can transact and interoperate without “Ethlabs was created to help Ethereum achieve that potential. As long-time contributors to the core protocol, we are establishing an independent, nonprofit organization to advance Ethereum’s core technology and the shared standards and infrastructure builders they depend on, and we are excited to carry that work forward at a time it matters most.”
The funding effort has been organized to preserve Ethlabs’ independence at all levels. Contributions flow through an independent grant administrator who handles selection, assessment and disbursement. Funders provide accountability through transparent quarterly reporting and an independent annual audit, rather than influencing the research agenda. Final decisions on research priorities and technical direction will rest with Ethlabs leadership.
About BitMine
Bitmine (NYSE: BMNR) is a Bitcoin miner with operations in the US. The company is deploying its excess capital to be the world’s leading Ethereum treasury company, implementing an innovative digital asset strategy for institutional investors and public market participants. Guided by its philosophy of “the alchemy of 5%”, the Company is committed to ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset, leveraging native protocol-level activities, including decentralized and staking financial mechanisms. The Company launched MAVAN (Made-in America Validator Network), a dedicated staking infrastructure for Bitmine assets, in 2026.
About SharpLink
Sharplink (NASDAQ: SBET) is a leading institutional-grade Ethereum treasury platform designed to provide public market investors with smarter, more productive exposure to ETH. Ethereum underpins most global stablecoins, real-world tokenized assets, and decentralized financial settlement, making ETH a unique native yield generation and long-term network growth opportunity. Sharplink was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Get more information at www.sharplink.com.
About Ethlabs
Ethlabs is an independent, non-profit research and development laboratory and ecosystem manager focused on the next era of growth for Ethereum and ETH. It exists to turn the unique properties of Ethereum into infrastructure, standards, and outcomes that users, builders, institutions, and asset issuers can trust. All their research is published openly. Learn more at ethlabs.org.
Forward-looking statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding anticipated institutional interest in Ethereum, research focus and technical roadmaps, governance arrangements, grant management and oversight mechanisms, and treasury and digital asset strategies. These statements are based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including market conditions for digital assets, regulatory changes, protocol-level developments or setbacks, the timing and success of research efforts, the availability of funds, and general economic conditions. Additional risk factors are described in Sharplink and Bitmine’s SEC filings at www.sec.gov. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release, are not guarantees, and neither Sharplink nor Bitmine undertakes any obligation to update them, except as required by law. This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or digital asset.
