Joe Lubin: Ethereum's silent partner

Original author: Thejaswini MA

Original translation:Block unicorn

Preface

Bitcoin has Saylor, Ethereum has Joe Lubin.

Ethereum’s co-founder, just convinced a casino marketing company to invest $425 million in programmable currency.

His recent moves include becoming chairman of SharpLink Gaming and negotiating with sovereign wealth funds to build a financial infrastructure on Ethereum. The SEC has just dropped a lawsuit against his company, ConsenSys, clearing regulatory barriers for larger plans.

Lubin 's cryptocurrency journey began with Princeton Robotics Labs, Goldman Sachs Trading Hall and Jamaican Music Studio. His method is orderly: first build infrastructure, and then promote application implementation.

Goldman Sachs' exit

Joe Lubin 's cryptocurrency story begins with financial disasters he witnessed, rather than ideological beliefs.

September 11, 2001: Lubin , as Vice President of Technology at Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management, witnessed the World Trade Center attack. Seven years later, he observed the global financial crisis from within Wall Street.

His reaction was extraordinary. Rather than double down on traditional finance, Lubin headed to Jamaica to make music.

This is not a midlife crisis. The financial system exposed its vulnerability twice in a decade, and Lubin was there in person both times .

His journey to Goldman Sachs follows a predictable model. Studying a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University . For three years, he has managed the Robot and Expert Systems Laboratory, dedicated to machine vision and autonomous vehicles. Worked at Vision Applications for a while and was responsible for the development of autonomous mobile robots. Afterwards, he entered the financial field through software consulting .

By the late 1990s, Lubin occupied the coveted intersection of ambitious technologists—a combination of technology and huge sums of money. His Princeton roommate Michael Novogratz has made similar moves in traditional finance.

Then, the tall buildings collapsed and the market collapsed , and Lubin believed that the predictable model was not worth it.

After disappointed with traditional finance, Lubin moved to Jamaica with his girlfriend to become a music producer.

However, the story that follows doesn’t read like a retreat, but more like a field trip.

Bitcoin Discovery

In 2009, Lubin stumbled upon the white paper of Bitcoin while developing music software in the dancehall music circle in Jamaica.

He later recalled: “When I came into contact with this technology, I went through the ‘bitcoin moment’ that many of us have experienced: it has the potential to change everything.”

Lubin’s Bitcoin moment is different from the typical cryptocurrency transformation story. His excitement is that it provides engineering solutions to systemic problems rather than liberal ideals or financial speculation.

The 2008 financial crisis demonstrates how centralized financial institutions amplify risks across the economy. Bitcoin offers an alternative: a monetary system that requires no intermediaries that have just proven themselves unreliable.

Lubin had been accumulating Bitcoin for the next four years, and most financial figures were dismissive of it. He is not building a community, nor preaching, but learning.

By January 2014, everything changed.

Encounter with Ethereum

"In November 2013, Vitalik Butling wrote the first edition of the Ethereum White Paper. On January 1, 2014, I discussed the project with Vitalik and received a copy. That was my Ethereum moment. I was fully engaged," he said.

"In November 2013, Vitalik Buterin wrote the first edition of the Ethereum White Paper. On January 1, 2014, I discussed the white paper with Vitalik and received a copy. That was my moment in entering Ethereum. I was fully engaged ," he said.

Vitalik envisions a programmable blockchain that can not only transfer value. Lubin understands its significance with his background in robots and autonomous systems.

A few months later, Lubin positioned himself as a business architect for Ethereum. Vitalik is responsible for the technology vision, while Lubin is responsible for the actual operation of turning the white paper into a runnable system.

The process is full of drama. On June 7, 2014, the founding team of Ethereum gathered in Zug, Switzerland to plan to build Ethereum into a for-profit company. But internal political factors are involved. After private discussions, Vitalik announced the withdrawal of Charles Hoskinson and Steven Chetrit, and Ethereum will become a non-profit foundation.

Lubin et al. called it the “red wedding”, citing the betrayal scene in Game of Thrones . For Lubin, this is not a setback, but an opportunity.

Early Ethereum core team members rented a house during the 2014 Miami Bitcoin Conference

The Ethereum Foundation will focus on protocol development. Others need to build commercial infrastructure so that Ethereum can be used by enterprises and institutions.

Building an infrastructure stack

ConsenSys was established in October 2014 and was launched at the same time as the Ethereum main network. Lubin’s approach is systematized: building all the infrastructure needed to build Ethereum as the foundation of the financial system.

Instead of betting on a single application, ConsenSys incubates projects covering the entire Ethereum stack:

• Infrastructure : Infura provides API access to Ethereum nodes, which most decentralized finance (DeFi) applications rely on to run.

• User Interface : MetaMask becomes the primary entrance for millions of people to access Ethereum applications.

• Developer tools : Truffle Suite has become the standard configuration for Ethereum development.

• Enterprise Solution : Ka leido provides enterprises with blockchain as a service to meet internal construction needs.

Lubin described the early stages as a “chaotic incubator”, spawning over 50 businesses. Critics believe it lacks focus, while Lubin calls it ecosystem construction.

This approach reflects his engineering background. In the robotics world, you need to build perception systems, processing systems, execution systems, and coordination protocols. Lubin applies similar systematic thinking to Ethereum.

Progressive decentralization theory

Lubin's philosophical framework for building decentralized systems using centralized entities is called "gradual decentralization".

This concept solves the practical problem: How to launch a decentralized network when decentralized coordination is itself difficult?

Lubin’s strategy is to start with centralization, build infrastructure, and then gradually hand over control to the community as the technology matures.

This strategy has achieved varying degrees of results in the ConsenSys project. Truffle Suite became an open source project, developed by the community. ConsenSys has divested dozens of projects into separate entities, including Gnosis, reducing direct control over its ecosystem.

But the transformation has not been completed. MetaMask is still mainly controlled by ConsenSys, and Infura discusses plans for decentralized node distribution, but there is no specific timetable.

“ It is not wrong to have an entity that is organized in a fixed way to try to build an entity that is organized in a different way,” he argued.

This philosophy allows ConsenSys to build Ethereum infrastructure without getting caught up in governance debates or community politics. This also makes Lubin a coordinator of the Ethereum business ecosystem while keeping a distance from protocol governance.

Supervision Victory

In February 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to withdraw the lawsuit against ConsenSys. The case accused ConsenSys of earning more than $250 million in fees through MetaMask's staking and exchange services, violating the Securities Act.

ConsenSys filed a counterclaim in April 2024, arguing that treating ETH as a security would criminalize fundamental network usage.

The SEC has withdrawn the case under the "new direction" guided by the Trump administration, with no fines or conditions attached. "Now we can focus 100% on building. 2025 will be the best year for Ethereum and ConsenSys," Lubin said.

SharpLink Transactions

In May 2025, online casino-affiliated marketing company SharpLink Gaming announced a $425 million private placement to build an Ethereum vault. Joe Lubin became chairman of the board.

Comparison with Michael Sailer appears immediately.

Similar to Sailer's MicroStrategy, SharpLink uses enterprise vault strategies to make large bets on cryptocurrencies. Similar to Sailer, Lubin positioned itself as the public image adopted by the institution.

SharpLink's stock price soared by more than 400% after the announcement, and has accumulated a cumulative increase of more than 900% in the past month. The list of participants includes well-known crypto venture capital companies: ParaFi Capital, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital, Arrington Capital, Galaxy Digital, and Republic Digital.

Lubin has applied for an additional $1 billion in SharpLink, of which “almost all” will be used to purchase ETH. If successful, this will create one of the largest corporate cryptocurrency vaults.

This model represents positive practicality rather than passive speculation.

Sovereign Fund Statement

The SharpLink deal may just be the prelude to a bigger move.

In a recent podcast, Lubin said ConsenSys is in talks with sovereign wealth funds and major banks in "a very large country" to build infrastructure within the Ethereum ecosystem.

He declined to disclose the specific country. The focus of these discussions is reportedly building institutional infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, including layer one protocols and customized layer two solutions.

If true, this will verify Lubin’s decade-long bet on Ethereum infrastructure. This will also distinguish Ethereum from other cryptocurrencies: as the basic layer of the country's financial system.

This opportunity coincides with the Central Bank Digital Currency ( CBDC ) entering the implementation stage from the experimental stage. Governments need programmable monetary infrastructure, and Ethereum has the most mature developer ecosystem and institutional tools.

Lubin believes this is a logical progress: “Ethereum has a unique advantage in the next stage of anchoring the global financial system.”

Our Views

Lubin, 61 , runs a crypto empire built around the tools that make Ethereum truly available. The most important creation of ConsenSys is MetaMask, a browser wallet that has become a portal for millions of people to access DeFi.

Without MetaMask, the Ethereum ecosystem may still be limited to the developer space. The company has also incubated dozens of other projects, from Infura’s critical node infrastructure to Truffle’s development tools.

Instead of hiring traditional tech workers, ConsenSys formed a unique team: entrepreneurs with engineer-mindedness, protocol architects who understand business, and corporate experts who can translate blockchain concepts for Fortune 500 boards.

The SEC victory eliminates regulatory uncertainty in ConsenSys' core products. SharpLink vault trading provides an open market tool for institutional adoption of Ethereum. If discussions on sovereign funds come true, Ethereum may be positioned as the infrastructure of the country's financial system.

Lubin’s vision is not limited to financial applications, but rather to completely transform the Internet architecture – a decentralized World Wide Web (Web 3.0), where users have their own data, applications resist censorship, and economic value flows directly between creators and consumers.

He explained: “Entrepreneurs and technologists are flocking to the ecosystem to build a decentralized World Wide Web, Web 3.0. Once you see the profound impact of blockchain, you can’t ignore it. Every new wave of hype cycle will bring more, larger builders and users. There is no way back for these people.”

His recent actions show that this vision is shifting from theory to practice.