EthLabs Founded by Ex-Ethereum Foundation Members Amid Major Staff Exodus

A new nonprofit research organization called EthLabs has launched, founded by five former Ethereum Foundation researchers and developers, including executive director Ansgar Dietrichs. The organization went public one day before the Ethereum Foundation announced significant layoffs, and days after co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang disclosed her resignation — part of a broader wave of departures that has seen at least nine prominent foundation members leave since January 2026.

EthLabs describes its mission as advancing Ethereum's technical roadmap with a heightened focus on real-world and institutional adoption. Dietrichs and co-founders say the organization is not intended to replace the Ethereum Foundation but to occupy areas the foundation is deliberately stepping back from as it narrows its strategic focus.

'We looked around, didn't see anyone else stepping up,' Dietrichs told CoinDesk. 'After two months of that, we looked at each other and said, well, if no one else is stepping up, then it has to be us.'

The Ethereum Foundation earlier this year published a renewed mandate centred on core values such as credible neutrality, self-sovereignty and open infrastructure, while pulling back from some implementation-focused efforts. Ongoing budget constraints have accompanied that shift, resulting in organisational restructuring and personnel changes across the institution.

Dietrichs frames those developments not as a crisis but as an expected evolution. 'It's more a transition period,' he said. 'Ethereum is now much more intentionally, proactively reorienting itself to be ready for this new time period.'

According to Dietrichs, Ethereum is entering a fundamentally different phase after roughly a decade of infrastructure construction. Smart contracts, decentralised finance, scaling technologies and layer-2 networks now form a largely established foundation. The next challenge, in his view, is enabling Ethereum to support large-scale financial infrastructure at an institutional level. 'The decade of infrastructure build-out of Ethereum is coming to an end,' he said. 'Now it's much more about actual institutional adoption.'

EthLabs intends to pursue what Dietrichs calls 'adoption-oriented engineering work.' That includes improving Ethereum's scalability, strengthening layer-1 performance, advancing cross-chain interoperability and identifying technical barriers that currently prevent broader institutional deployment. Some of this work continues projects the founders previously led inside the Ethereum Foundation, including layer-1 scaling research.

'We're deliberately positioning ourselves to fill the gaps that the Ethereum Foundation now deliberately leaves,' Dietrichs said. 'We're not trying to create a competing vision for Ethereum.'

Despite the timing of its public launch — coinciding almost precisely with the foundation's layoffs — EthLabs maintains its creation was a response to perceived gaps in the ecosystem rather than internal foundation tensions. Observers have nonetheless noted that the sequence of events raises questions about the foundation's future role and whether Ethereum's broader governance model is entering a new chapter.

Dietrichs pushed back on the idea that the ecosystem remains trapped in the boom-and-bust cycles of earlier years. 'I don't think crypto and Ethereum will ever go back to a time like it was in the past,' he said, arguing the sector has structurally matured. EthLabs plans to extend its work into engagement with financial institutions exploring Ethereum's capabilities for real-world use cases, signalling a deliberate pivot toward the regulated finance sector as the network's next major frontier.