Ethlabs launches with backing from SharpLink, Bitmine and Joe Lubin

Ethlabs has formally launched as an independent nonprofit research and development lab for Ethereum, backed by Bitmine Immersion Technologies, SharpLink, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and other ecosystem contributors including Anchorage, Octant and SNZ. The group was co-founded by five former senior Ethereum Foundation researchers — Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf and Julian Ma — and is positioning itself to help prepare the network for a new phase of institutional adoption. The lab said its early work will center on faster settlement, native issuance, cross-chain movement, mainnet capacity and research supporting ETH’s monetary properties, while also reinforcing Ethereum’s neutrality, censorship resistance and security. Ethlabs said it is being set up as one of several independent organizations advancing Ethereum in parallel as the Ethereum Foundation refocuses on its core mandate and embraces what supporters described as a more distributed, multi-node future. Backers said the initiative is meant to give long-term institutional footing and stable funding to researchers who have worked on Ethereum’s core finality, scalability, data availability, virtual machine and protocol economics. Ethlabs said contributions will be routed through an independent administrator responsible for screening, evaluation and disbursement, with transparent quarterly reporting and an annual independent audit intended to preserve the group’s research independence. The launch reflects a broader push inside Ethereum to ensure the network can support growing volumes of stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI-driven commerce onchain. Bitmine and SharpLink also used the announcement to highlight their own Ethereum treasury strategies, with Bitmine describing itself as a Bitcoin miner that is using excess capital to become a leading Ethereum treasury company and noting it launched its MAVAN validator network in 2026.