Ethereum Institutional, a new nonprofit backed by BitMine, SharpLink, and co-founder Joe Lubin, launched to guide Wall Street firms onto Ethereum. It is the second Ethereum-focused nonprofit unveiled in weeks, arriving as the Ethereum Foundation cuts staff and faces criticism.
A new nonprofit built to bring banks and asset managers onto Ethereum launched Wednesday, backed by co-founder Joe Lubin and the two largest publicly traded Ethereum treasury firms, BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink. Named Ethereum Institutional, the group will act as an independent point of contact for financial institutions exploring tokenization, stablecoins, and other on-chain infrastructure. Lubin will anchor its funding alongside dozens of other individual and institutional contributors.
A dedicated counterpart for institutions
The organization said it will build on institutional engagement work previously led by the Ethereum Foundation, but operate independently. It plans to focus on five areas: institutional education, intelligence, ecosystem marketing, industry requirements, and events. From launch it will cover New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with plans to expand into Zurich, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Abu Dhabi.
Ethereum Institutional said it has built more than 500 institutional relationships across banks, asset managers, custodians, and market infrastructure providers. According to crypto.news, executive director David Walsh said: "neutrality without representation can often be seen as silence."
Timing against a strained Foundation
The launch follows the debut last week of Ethlabs, a separate research nonprofit created by former Ethereum Foundation researchers and backed by many of the same supporters. The entities described the two as complementary, one advancing protocol-layer work and the other guiding institutions from evaluation to deployment.
Both arrive as the Ethereum Foundation faces criticism for failing to bolster ETH’s price and public image. The Foundation laid off 20% of its workforce last week and began a substantial reorganization, after numerous leaders left their posts in recent months. The pitch to Wall Street lands as Ethereum hosts about $180 billion in stablecoins on mainnet, roughly 60% of total supply, and about two-thirds of tokenized real-world assets.
Sources: Decrypt, Crypto News
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