Five former Ethereum Foundation researchers have established a nonprofit research and development organisation, Ethlabs, and begun Ethereum research aimed at moving institutional investors onchain.

CoinPost, a blockchain outlet, reported on Monday that Ethlabs has started full-scale operations with BitMine and SharpLink as major backers.

The five co-founders are Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabe Monnot, Casper Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolph and Julian Ma. They have worked on key Ethereum upgrades in areas including finality, scalability, data availability, virtual machines and protocol economic design.

Ethlabs' initial tasks are focused on meeting the conditions needed when institutional money moves onchain at scale. Priorities include faster settlement, native issuance, cross-chain transfers on robust infrastructure, expanding mainnet throughput and research into Ethereum's monetary characteristics. It also includes strengthening Ethereum as a settlement base for stablecoins and real-world assets (RWA).

Its funding structure is also drawing attention. BitMine and SharpLink, the main backers, were presented as the two listed companies holding the most Ethereum. BitMine holds 5.67 million ETH and SharpLink holds about 876,000 ETH.

The investors cited growing institutional demand as the background to establishing the organisation. Tom Lee (톰 리), who leads BitMine, said Ethereum is entering a phase of sharply increasing adoption by institutional investors and artificial intelligence (AI) agents, and the ecosystem needs to scale up investment in research and talent. Joseph Chalom (조지프 샬롬), SharpLink's chief executive, also said an institutional-investor cycle within the Ethereum ecosystem is only just beginning, and supporting people who push protocol-level research is the clearest way to show the company's conviction.

The launch also coincides with a reshaping of the Ethereum Foundation's role. The Ethereum Foundation earlier set out a policy to focus this year on core work specialised in CROPS technologies such as censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security. Joe Lubin previously mentioned that multiple independent organisations would be launched outside the foundation.

Changes inside and outside the foundation are continuing. In recent years, two co-executive directors and protocol cluster leadership stepped down in succession, and Ethereum holders and the community continued discussions about the foundation's direction. Against this backdrop, Ethlabs is drawing attention for launching a separate research base outside the foundation and taking on protocol research needed for responding to institutions.

A key question going forward is whether Ethlabs' proposed research tasks lead to actual expansion of the Ethereum mainnet and stronger institutional settlement infrastructure. In particular, absorbing demand for stablecoin and real-world asset settlement requires tackling throughput, asset issuance, cross-chain movement and defining ETH's role together, prompting interest in how the new organisation's research results will affect the broader Ethereum ecosystem.

Extremely excited to announce our support of @ethlabs_org alongside @fundstrat (@BitMNR), @ethereumjoseph, and other Ethereum stakeholders. Founded by former senior Ethereum Foundation researchers, this independent nonprofit will ready Ethereum for the next phase of… pic.twitter.com/4WQSwkXajq