There's a new org in town. Several months ago, the Ethereum Foundation announced it was narrowing its scope to a new focus: CROPS. Censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security. The goal? Making Ethereum the most hardened and credibly neutral protocol in the world. The EF is also shrinking its size, in line with its "subtraction philosophy" of becoming relatively less important within the Ethereum ecosystem. One corollary of this narrowed focus is that roles the EF formerly filled (ecosystem development, adoption, broader protocol R&D, etc) seemed like they were at risk of being orphaned or left undone. Until now. Ethlabs is founded by former top EF researchers to drive usage, value, and adoption to Ethereum through the kind of applied R&D that is no longer being done by the EF. Another core focus of theirs is maximizing the value of ETH the asset. Two of the four protocol architecture leaders on the below (old) org chart are its founding members, with other leaders joining as well. This group has deep R&D legitimacy and experience. Ethlabs is one of the most bullish things to happen to Ethereum in a long time. I'm personally supporting them and can't wait to see the progress they make over the coming years.