Francesco D’Amato joins Ethlabs as the former Ethereum Foundation researcher ends a five-year tenure at EF Research to continue protocol work at the independent nonprofit, deepening a structural shift that is pulling core Ethereum development away from the Foundation.
D’Amato wrote on X that he had worked across MEV, consensus mechanisms, data availability sampling, and execution layer pricing during his time at EF Research. He described leaving as difficult but framed the current period as the right moment, writing: ‘Leaving that behind is hard, but after 5 years this time of great change seems right for a new beginning.’
His top stated priority at Ethlabs is Ethereum finality time. He said he intends to spend much of his effort helping Ethereum ‘finalize much faster, as soon as possible,’ a line that maps directly onto ongoing work around single-slot finality and related consensus upgrades.
What Ethlabs Is and Who Is Behind It
Ethlabs launched on 22 June 2026 as a nonprofit protocol research organisation founded by five former EF researchers: Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma, according to the official PRNewswire press release. Dietrichs was a central figure in proposer-builder separation (PBS) work; Monnot led the Foundation’s robust incentives group and produced widely cited research on MEV and cryptoeconomic mechanism design, per The Defiant.
Backers include Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), and SharpLink (Nasdaq: SBET), among others. The organisation accepts donations in ETH, stablecoins, and ERC-20 tokens at the ENS address eth-labs.eth, with contributions managed through an external grants administrator.
Research scope spans settlement speed, network capacity, native asset issuance, cross-chain interoperability, and Ethereum’s monetary design. The group says research decisions remain independent of its corporate funders.
Lubin has framed the structure as a deliberate ‘multi-node’ model, arguing the ecosystem needs a number of ‘steward nodes’ to grow network usage, rather than a single coordinating body, according to TechTimes. That framing, however, has not gone unchallenged: TechTimes also reports that backers and co-founders openly disagreed within a week of launch over whether Ethlabs is a complement to the Ethereum Foundation or an outright competitor to it, and whether the funding gap it was created to fill is real.
Francesco D’Amato Joins Ethlabs Amid a Shrinking Foundation
The context for D’Amato’s move is a Foundation running a significantly tighter operation. Last month, the EF cut 54 positions, approximately 20% of its workforce, as it dissolved its Protocol Support team and reorganised remaining work into dedicated divisions covering protocol development, users, community, access, and institutional activity. Affected staff received severance, transition support, and grants, crypto.news reported.
The cuts sit within a broader financial tightening. According to The Defiant, Vitalik Buterin announced a 40% annual budget reduction for the Foundation, targeting a drawdown in treasury spend from 15% to 5% of holdings by 2030. Arkham Intelligence places the EF’s ETH holdings at approximately $209 million, described as a nearly six-year low.
CoinDesk notes the restructuring has coincided with sustained senior leadership turnover, with a spate of departures in recent months raising questions about the Foundation’s governance and execution, per CoinDesk.
D’Amato himself noted that for the first time since beginning Ethereum protocol research, he believes there is ‘a credible shot’ for core research to advance outside the Foundation. Whether that shot lands at Ethlabs will partly depend on whether the organisation resolves its own internal tension between positioning itself as cooperative infrastructure and quietly competing for the talent and mandate the Foundation is shedding.
