From "One Foundation" to "Many Stewards": Ethereum Restructures to Become Institutional Finance's Settlement Layer

A burst of launches and restructuring—"the biggest structural shift since The Merge"

It began on June 22 with the public unveiling of EthLabs, an independent nonprofit R&D organization. The very next day, June 23, the EF announced the largest restructuring in its history. Then on July 1, a nonprofit focused on institutional engagement, Ethereum Institutional, launched. All trace back to talent departures and a rethink of roles at the EF, crystallizing co-founder Joe Lubin's vision of a network of "steward nodes" that share responsibility for Ethereum's roadmap.

The Foundation shrinks, and functions move outward

On June 23, the EF cut 54 roles—about 20% of its roughly 270-person staff—and reduced its 2026 budget by about 40%. Vitalik Buterin made explicit a shift to an "endowment" model, lowering annual spending from roughly 15% of treasury assets toward about 5% by 2030 for an indefinite runway. The organization was reorganized into five clusters (protocol, access, user, community, institutional), and its in-house cryptography unit, PSE (Privacy and Scaling Explorations), was shut down. At least nine senior figures, including both co-executive directors, have left since January. Buterin recast the EF as "one of many stewards," favoring a "soft lean-and-done" ossification once the current roadmap is complete.

Two organizations filling two gaps—engineering and institutional access

EthLabs was founded by five prominent EF-alumni researchers (led by Ansgar Dietrichs). Funding comes from ETH-holding treasury companies such as BitMine and SharpLink (together holding over $11 billion in ETH) plus Lubin, but flows through an independent administrator with quarterly reporting and annual audits to preserve research independence. Its top technical priority is single-slot finality—cutting the roughly 15-minute settlement finality that blocks bank-scale settlement down to about 12 seconds—alongside scaling and interoperability. Ethereum Institutional, led by former EF enterprise head David Walsh and others, aims to be a "neutral point of contact" for banks and asset managers evaluating tokenization and stablecoins, handling market intelligence and ecosystem outreach. Standard Chartered and Bitwise, among others, voiced support.

Ethereum's direction, and the open questions

The direction is clear: decentralizing operations to reduce dependence on any single body; concentrating on becoming the settlement layer for institutional finance (tokenization, stablecoins); and adopting an endowment model for financial durability. Yet risks abound. Organizations that call themselves "complementary" may in practice compete for a limited number of protocol-upgrade slots. Concentrating funding among ETH treasury companies aligns incentives but embeds dependence on ETH's price and a few players. Notably, token performance has lagged network usage: ETH fell roughly 44% in 2026 and U.S. spot ETFs saw multiple consecutive weeks of net outflows. Because the endowment's real size tracks ETH's price, prolonged weakness could quietly shrink research capacity.

[Business Development Insights]

1. Ethereum has explicitly re-hoisted the banner of "settlement layer for institutional finance." For firms weighing tokenization or stablecoins (including OUSD from our prior report, slated to run on Ethereum-family chains), the arrival of Ethereum Institutional as a "neutral point of contact" is significant—enabling technical evaluation and partnership discussions through an ecosystem-wide door rather than individual vendors. The timing to evaluate an Ethereum base layer is improving.
2. The locus of funding is shifting from "the Foundation" to "ETH treasury companies" (BitMine, SharpLink, etc.). A model where funders and beneficiaries coincide is powerful for incentive alignment, but it carries dependence on ETH's price and a handful of players, plus neutrality/capture risk. Before betting infrastructure on any single organization, a staged assessment of funding durability and governance independence is prudent.
3. The technical roadmap now targets institutions' concrete barriers directly (finality from ~15 min to ~12 sec, interoperability, L1 scaling). Delivery timelines for these become a leading indicator of when large-scale institutional settlement on Ethereum mainnet becomes realistic. Meanwhile, the "soft lean-and-done" path implies fewer breaking changes long term—a stability tailwind for anything built on top.

[Sources]

• CoinDesk, "EthLabs launches as Ethereum undergoes its biggest leadership transition in years": https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/07/01/ethlabs-launches-as-ethereum-undergoes-its-biggest-leadership-transition-in-years
• CoinDesk, "Ethereum gets a new nonprofit focused on institutional adoption": https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/07/01/ethereum-gets-a-new-nonprofit-focused-on-institutional-adoption
• CoinDesk, "Ethereum Institutional launch draws support from across the Ethereum ecosystem": https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/07/01/ethereum-institutional-launch-draws-support-from-across-the-ethereum-ecosystem
• The Defiant, "Five Former EF Researchers Launch Ethlabs": https://thedefiant.io/news/people/five-former-ef-researchers-launch-ethlabs-independent-nonprofit-rd-lab-ethereum
• CoinMarketCap Academy, "Ethereum Foundation To Cut Budget 40%, Slash 54 Jobs": https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/en/article/ethereum-foundation-cuts-budget-jobs-2026
• Bankless, "The Ethereum Foundation Reveals New Structure": https://www.bankless.com/read/news/the-ethereum-foundation-reveals-new-structure
• TechTimes, "Ethereum Research Lab Ethlabs Launches: Five EF Alumni Target 15-Minute Finality Problem": https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318906/20260623/ethereum-research-lab-ethlabs-launches-five-ef-alumni-target-15-minute-finality-problem.htm
• TechTimes, "Ethlabs Backers Admit Ethereum's New Research Lab Will Compete With the Foundation": https://www.techtimes.com/articles/319362/20260630/ethlabs-backers-admit-ethereums-new-research-lab-will-compete-foundation-not-just-help-it.htm