Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s tech newsletter covering the most important stories in blockchain. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk.
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This week, we’re diving into Ethereum Institutional, a new nonprofit aimed at educating financial institutions and banks about Ethereum.
Ethereum's newest nonprofit is positioning itself asWall Street’s crypto sherpa, guiding banks and asset managers through the Ethereum ecosystem at a pivotal moment for the network.
For much of the past year, the conversation around Ethereum has been dominated by questions about its future. The Ethereum Foundation has faced mounting criticism over its role in the ecosystem, and, in response, has restructured its leadership, laid off staff and narrowed its focus to stewarding the protocol. At the same time, independent organizations have begun emerging to take on responsibilities that were once housed within the foundation.
The latest is Ethereum Institutional, a nonprofit launched last week with an ambitious goal: becoming the Ethereum ecosystem's front door for banks, asset managers and other financial institutions.
Its founders say the organization will serve as a neutral guide for enterprises exploring Ethereum, helping institutions understand the ecosystem, connect with developers and infrastructure providers, and navigate the network without promoting any single company or product.
Ethereum Institutional is led by David Walsh, Matthew Dawson and Marius Smith, whose backgrounds span traditional finance, technology and crypto. Walsh and Dawson previously worked on the Ethereum Foundation's enterprise engagement team, while Smith joined after senior roles at Google and EigenLayer developer Eigen Labs.
"We've built up around 500 relationships over the course of the year, and what's consistently come back was that they appreciate having a neutral counterpart," Dawson told CoinDesk in an interview. "There's thousands of teams in the Ethereum ecosystem... the feedback sometimes has been, 'This is overwhelming.'"
The organization is designed to fill what its founders see as a missing piece in Ethereum's institutional strategy.
Unlike companies building products on Ethereum, Ethereum Institutional says it will work across the ecosystem, helping enterprises evaluate use cases such as tokenization, stablecoins and digital asset infrastructure while introducing them to the teams best suited for their needs.
"Navigating what is already a new and fairly complex technology and the decentralized ecosystem is a bit daunting," Dawson said. "Having a trusted and neutral partner that can help with that navigation... can accelerate that journey and give them confidence."
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