Consensys Software Inc., the Ethereum-focused company best known for MetaMask, plans to split into two standalone businesses—separating its consumer-oriented MetaMask platform from its institutional infrastructure and protocol operations. The company says the restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with MetaMask led by Joe Lubin as chairman and CEO of the consumer company and Lubin also serving as executive chairman of the reorganized Consensys.

In the new structure, the remaining Consensys entity will focus on Ethereum protocols and institutional infrastructure. Its portfolio includes Linea, Besu, and Teku, and leadership will be handled by CEO Mike Kriak and President David Cunningham. The company frames the move as a response to diverging priorities between consumer products and enterprise blockchain deployment.

Key takeaways

• Consensys will split into two independent companies by the end of 2026, separating MetaMask’s consumer business from institutional infrastructure and protocols.
• MetaMask will stay focused on self-custody for users, while expanding into broader finance use cases such as payments, savings, and investing products.
• The new institutional Consensys will concentrate on Ethereum infrastructure and enterprise adoption, including tokenization and stablecoin-related services.
• Consensys says the consumer and institutional units have increasingly “different priorities,” a key justification for the corporate restructuring.

How the split reshapes Consensys’ operating model

According to Consensys’ announcement released via Business Wire, the company’s planned separation aims to give each business line room to pursue distinct strategies. In practice, the restructuring divides what has historically been one integrated Ethereum software ecosystem into two corporate entities with separate leadership teams and clearer mandates.

Consensys says the institutional company will house its protocols and enterprise infrastructure businesses, explicitly including Linea, Besu, and Teku. The stated focus goes beyond protocol development alone, extending to helping financial institutions deploy onchain capabilities for tokenization, stablecoins, and other onchain financial services.

Meanwhile, MetaMask is positioned as the home for consumer self-custody and a widening set of products meant to interact with mainstream financial activities. The company’s framing suggests a continued push for MetaMask to operate as more than a wallet—an interface through which users can access payment and investment-like functionality—while the enterprise-focused Consensys entity advances infrastructure and institutional use cases.

MetaMask’s expansion beyond a browser extension

MetaMask began in 2016 as an Ethereum browser extension for accessing decentralized applications and managing crypto assets, according to Consensys’ own historical account of the platform’s evolution. Over the past year, the company says MetaMask has added products that extend its role into payments, yield, and tokenized traditional assets.

One of the most notable developments described in the company’s coverage is the launch of MetaMask Money Account in June. The feature allows users to earn “up to 4% variable APY” on eligible mUSD stablecoin balances and spend those funds using the MetaMask Card. Consensys indicates that the yield is sourced from decentralized finance lending strategies rather than interest paid by MetaMask itself or by the stablecoin issuer.

In February, Consensys also pointed to MetaMask adding access to tokenized US stocks, exchange-traded funds, and commodities through Ondo Global Markets for eligible users outside the United States, referencing coverage that discussed the availability of 200 tokenized instruments. Later in February, it expanded MetaMask’s Mastercard-enabled spending card across 49 US states, building on earlier availability in other regions including Europe, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

Taken together, these product moves help explain why Consensys’ leadership appears to be treating the consumer business as something that increasingly looks like a retail financial application layered over Ethereum infrastructure, rather than a pure crypto tooling product.

Why Consensys says the separation makes sense now

Consensys states that the restructuring reflects increasingly different priorities between its consumer and institutional businesses. While the announcement is explicit about what each company will contain and what each will pursue, the underlying implication for investors and industry observers is that the risks, regulatory pressures, and product timelines for consumer finance features may differ sharply from those tied to enterprise protocol infrastructure.

The institutional unit’s focus—helping financial institutions deploy blockchain technology for tokenization and stablecoins—suggests a nearer-term path centered on integrations, enterprise adoption cycles, and infrastructure reliability. By contrast, MetaMask’s consumer roadmap described in the company’s rollout includes yield-bearing stablecoin access and card-based spending, areas that typically demand a strong user experience and careful alignment with payment rails and consumer-facing compliance expectations.

Separating the companies could therefore reduce internal tradeoffs: product teams can pursue roadmaps optimized for their user segments without competing for shared corporate bandwidth. It also creates a more straightforward way to evaluate each business line independently once the split is completed at the end of 2026.

What to watch as the companies operate independently

With completion targeted for the end of 2026, the most immediate question for users and builders is how the split affects product continuity—especially for MetaMask features that rely on Ethereum infrastructure and for institutional tools such as Linea, Besu, and Teku.

For the consumer side, attention will likely focus on whether MetaMask’s card, savings/yield functionality, and access to tokenized traditional assets continue expanding on a timeline comparable to the past year’s rollouts. For the enterprise side, the market will watch whether the reorganized Consensys institution continues to accelerate its work on deploying Ethereum infrastructure for tokenization and stablecoin use cases in collaboration with financial institutions.

In the months ahead, readers should look for clarifications from Consensys on how assets, roadmaps, and leadership responsibilities will transition through the separation process—because the core operational details will determine how smoothly both MetaMask’s consumer ambitions and the institutional unit’s infrastructure focus can scale after the split.

How Iceland responded to Trump’s U.S. takeover map

The September 15 upgrade brings smart contracts, an AMM DEX, and RPC infrastructure to a chain that has never processed a single swap. Seven years of mobile mining come down to whether anyone builds on the other side.

The most interesting thing about Pi Network is not the protocol upgrade scheduled for September 15. It is the gap between what Pi says it has built and what anyone can actually use.

Protocol 27 will activate smart contract authentication, an automated market maker DEX, and RPC server infrastructure on a mainnet that currently supports none of those things. On paper, this is the moment Pi transitions from a token distribution experiment to a functional Layer 1. In practice, the upgrade lands on a network where the DEX has only ever run on testnet, where 73% of claimed users have not migrated, and where daily trading volume would not fill a mid-tier Uniswap pool. The next ten days will answer a question that seven years of mobile mining have deferred: is there anything on the other side of the tap?

This piece maps the technical payload of Protocol 27, stress-tests the migration and liquidity numbers, examines the AI pivot that SocialChain has been building in plain sight, and measures the gap between Pi’s infrastructure claims and their on-chain evidence.

What Protocol 27 actually ships

The upgrade arriving September 15 is the second major protocol activation in less than two months. Protocol 27 bundles three components that collectively turn Pi from a transfer-only chain into something that could theoretically support decentralized applications.

First, smart contract authentication. Pi’s mainnet has operated without programmable contract deployment since its February 2022 launch. Protocol 27 introduces an authentication layer that gates which contracts can execute on-chain, a design choice that preserves SocialChain’s control over what gets deployed while technically enabling third-party code.

Second, an AMM DEX. The decentralized exchange module has lived on Pi’s testnet since early 2026 but has never processed a mainnet transaction. Protocol 27 migrates it to production. The critical unknown is whether the DEX will launch with open trading pairs or remain restricted to SocialChain-approved assets.

Third, RPC server infrastructure. Without public RPC endpoints, external developers cannot query the chain, index data, or build interfaces that interact with Pi without running a full node. Protocol 27 adds this plumbing.

The foundation was laid by Protocol v25, which activated July 22 and introduced BN254 elliptic curve cryptography, Poseidon hashing, and zero-knowledge proof support. Those are prerequisites for the contract verification system that Protocol 27 depends on. The two upgrades are sequential, not independent.

What is missing from the Protocol 27 changelog matters as much as what is included. There is no mention of permissionless contract deployment. There is no timeline for removing the authentication gate. The DEX module ships, but SocialChain has not published fee structures, liquidity provider incentives, or market-making parameters. These are not minor details. They determine whether Protocol 27 produces a functioning DeFi ecosystem or a controlled demonstration environment.

The migration wall

Pi claims 60 million engaged Pioneers. Only 16.6 million have completed mainnet migration. That 27.6% conversion rate is the single most important number in Pi’s ecosystem, and it is rarely discussed with the seriousness it deserves.

Migration requires KYC verification, wallet creation, and an active confirmation step. Pi has built an internal KYC network of 1,094,680 human validators who have processed over 526 million verification tasks. The infrastructure exists. The bottleneck is not capacity. It is willingness.

Three explanations compete for why 43.4 million Pioneers have not migrated. The charitable reading: many are casual users who downloaded the app, tapped the mining button a few times, and moved on. The critical reading: migration requires identity verification that some users in Pi’s global base cannot or will not complete. The structural reading: users who mined Pi for years watched it lose 96.7% of its value after exchange listings and decided the migration effort was not worth the outcome.

Whatever the cause, the effect is concrete. Protocol 27’s smart contracts, DEX, and developer tools arrive on a network where nearly three quarters of the claimed user base cannot interact with them. The 16.6 million migrated wallets represent the actual addressable market for anything built on Pi after September 15.

For context, Solana has roughly 1.8 million daily active addresses. Polygon has about 400,000. Raw wallet counts and active usage are different metrics, and Pi has not published daily active address data. The 16.6 million figure counts wallets that exist, not wallets that transact.

Consensys Software Inc., the Ethereum-focused firm behind MetaMask, plans to restructure by splitting its consumer-oriented business from its institutional blockchain infrastructure operations. The company says the separation is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, creating two independent companies with distinct leadership and strategic priorities.

According to a Business Wire announcement, Joe Lubin will serve as chairman and CEO of MetaMask while also taking the role of executive chairman of the new Consensys. The institutional business—focused on Ethereum protocols and infrastructure—will be led by Mike Kriak as CEO, with David Cunningham as president.

Key takeaways

• Consensys will separate into two independent firms by the end of 2026: MetaMask (consumer self-custody) and a new Consensys (Ethereum protocols and institutional infrastructure).
• The new Consensys will house Consensys’ protocol and infrastructure portfolio, including Linea, Besu, and Teku.
• MetaMask is positioned to broaden beyond a wallet into payments, savings, investing, and other traditional financial products.
• Consensys says MetaMask has surpassed 100 million downloads across about 190 countries and supported “trillions of dollars” in transaction volume.

From one umbrella to two focused companies

The planned reorganization reflects what the company describes as increasingly different objectives between its consumer-facing and institutional-facing teams. In the announcement, Consensys frames the split as a way to allow each business to pursue its own roadmap without competing for shared priorities.

Under the new structure, MetaMask will remain the centerpiece of the consumer division, with an emphasis on self-custody. Consensys also outlined that MetaMask’s expansion is not limited to crypto holdings and decentralized app access; it is intended to extend into areas such as payments, savings, and investing, as well as “traditional financial products.”

Meanwhile, the institutional infrastructure company will consolidate Consensys’ Ethereum protocol and infrastructure activities. The company says this entity will focus on Ethereum infrastructure while supporting financial institutions looking to deploy blockchain technology for tokenization, stablecoins, and other onchain financial services.

What will live under “MetaMask” vs. “the new Consensys”

Consensys’ announcement is explicit about the portfolio split. The new Consensys entity will house the company’s protocols and institutional infrastructure businesses, including Linea, Besu, and Teku.

While the announcement does not detail whether these products will change in scope after the separation, the strategic direction is clear: an infrastructure-first company designed to work with institutions, where the customer is more likely to value deployment, reliability, and enterprise integration over consumer growth metrics.

In contrast, MetaMask’s mandate centers on consumer self-custody and product-led expansion into finance-adjacent services. The company’s messaging suggests that the consumer operation will continue to evolve from a browser extension into a broader interface for onchain and finance-related experiences, including functionality connected to stablecoins and yield strategies—while remaining within a self-custody framework.

Consensys says MetaMask has been downloaded more than 100 million times across roughly 190 countries and facilitated trillions of dollars in transaction volume.

MetaMask’s push into consumer finance features

Part of the logic behind the split appears tied to how MetaMask has expanded beyond its original “wallet for decentralized applications” role. Launched in 2016 as an Ethereum browser extension, MetaMask has added new product lines over the past year, including tools associated with payments, yield, and access to tokenized real-world assets.

In June, Consensys said MetaMask launched Money Account, which it describes as allowing users to earn up to 4% variable APY on eligible mUSD stablecoin balances. The company also stated that the yield is generated through decentralized finance lending strategies rather than interest paid by MetaMask or by the stablecoin issuer.

Earlier in the year, MetaMask added access to tokenized financial products for certain users. In February, Consensys reported support for 200 tokenized US stocks, exchange-traded funds, and commodities via Ondo Global Markets, limited to eligible users outside the United States.

That same month, MetaMask rolled out a Mastercard-enabled spending card across 49 US states. Consensys said the card expanded a previously available product that had already reached markets including Europe, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

Taken together, these updates help explain why a consumer-first business might benefit from separation: MetaMask’s expanding feature set increasingly resembles a consumer finance platform—while the institutional protocols business is oriented toward deployment infrastructure for enterprise and regulated use cases.

Why the split matters for builders and investors

Restructuring a major Ethereum software provider can matter beyond internal operations, because it shapes where resources and attention flow. A dedicated institutional infrastructure unit may allow teams behind Linea, Besu, and Teku to focus more narrowly on scaling, tooling, and integration work relevant to financial institutions and enterprise networks.

For investors and market participants, the split also provides clearer lines of accountability: MetaMask’s leadership and product execution can be assessed primarily through consumer adoption and the rollout of finance features, while the new Consensys can be evaluated on the delivery of Ethereum infrastructure services and institutional deployment outcomes.

At the same time, Consensys’ own framing highlights that the separation is not simply organizational—it is strategic. The company says the consumer and institutional businesses have “increasingly different priorities,” and the timeline suggests it expects those differences to become more consequential as each unit pursues its own growth and partnerships.

Readers should watch how Consensys handles continuity during the transition, especially how MetaMask’s expanded financial features and the institutional protocols roadmap will evolve up to the end-of-2026 completion target.

With the split planned but not yet finalized, the key near-term question is whether the product lines will remain consistent for users while each company sharpens its focus—particularly as MetaMask continues moving into payments and tokenized asset access, and the institutional unit deepens its work supporting stablecoin and tokenization initiatives.

World has opened its standalone Solana prediction market platform to more than 1 million waitlisted users after creating over 150,000 markets through its Phantom integration.

World gives waitlisted users direct market access

World said in a Sept. 9 announcement that world.xyz now gives more than 1 million waitlisted users direct access to its prediction markets, extending the service beyond the Phantom wallet where it has operated since July.

The initial selection covers every NFL regular-season game, seven soccer leagues, and Formula 1. Contracts tied to the 2026 U.S. midterm elections and the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy decision are also available, placing political and economic events alongside sports and crypto markets.

Each market offers “yes” and “no” contracts priced between $0 and $1. Their prices represent the market’s assessment of whether an event will occur, while the final result determines which contract settles at $1 and which expires at $0.

Users settle trades with CASH, the dollar-backed stablecoin used inside Phantom. World operates as a non-custodial protocol, meaning it does not take custody of customer funds, while orders are routed to liquidity providers operating on Solana.

Unlike a conventional brokerage or centralized crypto exchange, World does not require users to open a brokerage account or register with an exchange. Phantom users still need enough funds to cover Solana network fees when opening or closing positions.

World’s service had already supported positions through Phantom before the standalone site went live. According to the company, users have opened positions through the prediction market service since June 1, 2026, while the wallet integration became publicly available in July.

The platform has not disclosed its first-day trading volume, open interest, or fee structure. Without those figures, its initial share of prediction market activity cannot yet be compared with established venues such as Kalshi and Polymarket.

Chainlink automates World market resolution

Chainlink Data Streams and the Chainlink Runtime Environment supply World with market data and automated resolution tools. Once a game finishes or another specified event reaches its deadline, the system can determine the result and settle the related contracts.

Using automated data removes the need for a human resolution panel or a vote among token holders. World said older oracle designs can also include dispute periods that delay settlement, while its Chainlink setup is designed to process outcomes from defined data sources.

Chainlink Labs Chief Business Officer Johann Eid linked World’s waitlist of more than 1 million users to demand for prediction markets built on Solana. According to Eid, Chainlink provides the data and infrastructure needed to resolve markets quickly and efficiently.

A similar model has already appeared elsewhere in the sector. In May, Myriad integrated Chainlink Data Streams and the Runtime Environment to automate the creation, resolution, and settlement of markets tied to BTC, ETH, BNB, and SOL.

Myriad also announced plans to extend its service to stocks, commodities, and other real-world assets. Its adoption showed how Chainlink’s infrastructure can coordinate external data with on-chain settlement without relying on a single manual decision-maker.

For World, the system supports contracts across categories that resolve in different ways. Sports markets require verified final scores, Federal Reserve contracts depend on official policy decisions, and election markets need confirmed results under predetermined settlement rules.

Solana keeps World liquidity onchain

Solana Foundation Head of DeFi Ramzy Ali said World introduces another type of tradable product to the network while keeping its liquidity within Solana’s on-chain economy.

Ali described the platform as “introducing a new asset class to Solana and keeping 100% of the liquidity onchain.”

World routes orders to Solana liquidity providers instead of managing trades through an off-chain order book controlled by the platform. According to the announcement, the arrangement allows capital committed to its markets to remain within the Solana network.

The standalone launch also places World among a growing group of prediction market providers competing for retail activity. Prediction market volume across Kalshi, Polymarket and Polymarket US reached a record $50.59 billion in July, according to data reported in August.

Kalshi accounted for $37.7 billion of the total, while Polymarket’s international and U.S. platforms generated a combined $12.9 billion. The figures represented notional trading volume rather than deposits or exchange revenue because contracts can change hands several times before settlement.

World has not provided comparable turnover data for the more than 150,000 markets created through its service. Its disclosed market count measures the number of contracts launched, not the amount of money traded or the number of active customers.

Access remains available through world.xyz and inside Phantom on iOS, Android, and desktop. Phantom states that prediction markets are offered only in jurisdictions where they are supported, although the launch announcement did not provide a country-by-country availability list.

U.S. access depends on local prediction market rules

World’s inclusion of NFL games and the 2026 midterm elections gives the platform a direct connection to U.S. events, but listing an American event does not establish that users in every U.S. state can trade it.

Prediction market access in the country remains subject to disputes over federal derivatives oversight and state gambling laws. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates designated contract markets, while several state authorities contend that sports and election contracts can fall under their own gaming rules.

In September, conflicting Kalshi rulings had produced different outcomes in federal appellate courts. The Third Circuit allowed an injunction protecting Kalshi from New Jersey enforcement to remain in place, while the Ninth Circuit permitted Nevada regulators to enforce state gaming requirements as litigation continued.

New Jersey subsequently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether the Commodity Exchange Act prevents states from applying sports-gambling laws to event contracts listed by a CFTC-regulated exchange. The petition does not mean the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the dispute.

World has not said that it operates a CFTC-registered exchange, nor has it identified which of its contracts are accessible to U.S. residents. Its jurisdiction notice therefore remains important for American users considering markets tied to sports, elections, or Federal Reserve decisions.

After the standalone rollout, World plans to add equity up-and-down contracts. Commodity markets covering gold, silver, oil, natural gas, and computing capacity are also planned, followed by weather contracts tied to major cities.

Turkey’s embrace of a political process—instead of simply pursuing a decisive military path—to end the conflict made it more acceptable to the PKK leadership and the Kurdish movement. Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK, had to persuade his comrades to dissolve their organization, abandon the armed struggle, and choose political struggle. Unfavorable broader regional trends against armed militancy may have helped convince Ocalan and his comrades to make that consequential choice.

The legitimacy of the political solution, in the eyes of the Kurds, determines its sustainability and transformative impact. The current peace process seeks to end the insurgency and transform the struggle for Kurdish rights and aspirations into a nonviolent political one. It could transform Turkey’s relations with its own Kurdish community and the Kurdish communities in Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Leaders of the Kurdish movement believe that they can achieve more through politics than through armed struggle, and that it isn’t only they who are transforming, but that the state, political, and legal systems in Turkey can also change. The promise of the future, rather than being beholden to the grievances of the past, is the way forward. 

Former Silvergate Bank CEO Alan Lane said political and regulatory pressure from the Biden administration drove the crypto-focused lender’s voluntary wind-down in 2023, arguing that the bank remained solvent after weathering a deposit run.

In an inaugural Substack post on Tuesday, Lane said Silvergate could have continued operating after satisfying withdrawals equivalent to 70% of its demand deposits during the fourth quarter of 2022. He argued that a “coordinated attack by the Biden Administration” ultimately led to the wind-down, saying the bank chose liquidation “in the face of political pressure.”

Lane said Silvergate had held liquid assets that could be sold or pledged as collateral during periods of heavy withdrawals. In a January 2023 business update, the bank reported that digital asset deposits fell 68% from $11.9 billion to $3.8 billion during the quarter. Silvergate sold $5.2 billion of debt securities, recording a $718 million loss. The bank said it had $4.6 billion in cash and equivalents at year-end. 

Lane’s account adds a firsthand claim to the debate over whether US agencies sought to restrict crypto companies’ access to banking. However, it differs from federal findings that attributed the bank’s liquidation to its concentrated deposit base, funding risks and weaknesses in governance and compliance. 

Regulators cited risk management, compliance failures

A September 2023 review by the Federal Reserve Board’s Office of Inspector General said Silvergate’s dependence on crypto depositors, rapid growth and multilayered funding risks led to its liquidation. It also cited significant weaknesses in corporate governance and risk management and said examiners could have acted more aggressively and decisively.

Lane said no regulator had proven that Silvergate’s anti-money laundering (AML) controls failed. In July 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Silvergate Capital, Lane and former chief risk officer Kathleen Fraher with misleading investors about the bank’s AML program and monitoring of crypto customers. 

The regulator alleged that Silvergate’s automated system failed to monitor more than $1 trillion in transactions and that the bank failed to detect nearly $9 billion in suspicious transfers among FTX entities.

Related: Silvergate’s Fraher breaks silence on settlement with Gensler’s SEC

Lane settled the SEC’s charges without admitting or denying the allegations, agreeing to a $1 million penalty and a five-year officer-and-director bar. Separately, the Federal Reserve fined Silvergate $43 million over transaction-monitoring deficiencies. 

Lane also cited interagency crypto-risk statements issued in early 2023 as evidence of pressure against the industry. The statements urged banks to take a cautious approach to crypto-related activities, although the Fed said institutions were neither prohibited nor discouraged from serving any specific customer class. In April 2025, government agencies withdrew the statements.

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