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.

Bitcoin price remained under pressure near $78,500 after a retreat from its Sept. 3 peak of $82,283, while weakening momentum and a possible head-and-shoulders pattern raised the risk of a deeper correction.

Bitcoin price action today

According to data from crypto.news, Bitcoin (BTC) price traded near $78,500 late on Sept. 9 after moving between approximately $78,060 and $79,760 during the daily session. The price has lost about 4.6% since reaching $82,283 on Sept. 3.

The latest decline extended a sequence of lower highs visible on the 4-hour chart. Buyers defended the area near $78,000 several times, but each rebound struggled to regain the psychological $80,000 level.

Bitcoin’s position inside the 4-hour Bollinger Bands also showed fading short-term strength. The asset traded at about $78,522, below the middle band at $79,079 and only slightly above the lower band at $78,015.

A move close to the lower Bollinger Band can indicate growing selling pressure, although the nearby support may also produce a short-term rebound. Bitcoin would need to recover above the middle band to weaken the immediate bearish setup.

The upper Bollinger Band stood near $80,144, making the $80,000–$80,150 region the first major resistance area. A close above that zone would give buyers another opportunity to challenge the recent highs around $81,500 and $82,300.

Oil and Treasury yields pressure risk assets

Bitcoin’s pullback came as escalating Middle East conflict pushed Brent crude toward $100 per barrel, reviving concerns that higher energy costs could keep inflation elevated. Brent reached $99.22 on Sept. 9, while West Texas Intermediate rose to $94.13.

Rising inflation concerns matter for US crypto investors because they can affect expectations for Federal Reserve interest rates. Higher rates and bond yields increase the returns available from lower-risk assets, creating competition for Bitcoin and other assets that do not generate interest.

Pressure also came from the US Treasury market. The benchmark 10-year yield climbed above 4.85% after the Treasury announced a $6 billion buyback operation targeting older bonds with maturities of 10 to 20 years.

The 30-year yield also reached its highest level since 2007. Rising Treasury yields can tighten financial conditions by increasing borrowing costs and reducing investors’ willingness to hold volatile assets.

Bitcoin’s decline therefore coincided with a wider reassessment of US inflation and interest-rate risks ahead of the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 15–16 policy meeting. Traders will watch incoming inflation data and oil prices for signs that the central bank may keep monetary policy restrictive.

Bitcoin technicals put $78K support in focus

The 4-hour relative strength index stood at 43.58, below both the neutral 50 mark and its signal average of 44.71. The reading showed bearish momentum without placing Bitcoin in oversold territory.

Daily indicators were less bearish. Bitcoin remained above the daily Supertrend support at $72,786, meaning the broader recovery structure had not yet been invalidated despite the latest decline.

The daily Aroon readings were also closely matched, with one line at 57.14% and the other at 50%. The narrow difference showed that neither buyers nor sellers had established strong control on the higher timeframe.

Crypto analyst Gerla identified a possible head-and-shoulders structure, with the first shoulder near the late-August highs, the head around the Sept. 3 peak, and the right shoulder potentially forming during the latest rebound.

“$78K–$79K is the line in the sand. Lose that and $70K could come pretty quick,” Gerla said in a Sept. 9 post on X.

The pattern remains unconfirmed while Bitcoin holds its neckline. A decisive daily close below $78,000 would strengthen the setup and expose $76,000–$77,000 before the larger downside target near $70,000.

Liquidation heatmap shows pressure on both sides

CoinGlass’s three-day liquidation heatmap showed large concentrations of leveraged positions above Bitcoin’s current price. The strongest nearby liquidity appeared between approximately $79,700 and $80,200, with additional clusters extending toward $82,000.

Such concentrations can attract price during periods of high leverage, although they do not guarantee that Bitcoin will move toward them. A recovery through $79,100 could trigger liquidations of short positions and help drive a test of the $80,000 cluster.

Downside liquidity was concentrated near $78,000 and between roughly $77,500 and $77,800. Losing the current support could therefore accelerate volatility as leveraged long positions are closed.

Further liquidity appeared around $76,000, broadly matching the next technical support area visible beneath the proposed neckline. The heatmap suggests that either a break above $80,000 or a loss of $78,000 could produce a sharper move as liquidations add to spot-market pressure.

Key Bitcoin levels to watch

Bitcoin’s immediate range sits between the lower Bollinger Band near $78,015 and the middle band around $79,079. Holding $78,000 would keep open the possibility of a relief move toward $79,700–$80,150.

A sustained break above $80,150 would weaken the short-term bearish structure and place $81,500 and $82,283 back in focus. Buyers would need to clear the September peak to confirm a renewed upward move.

A close below $78,000 would confirm greater weakness and shift attention to $77,500, followed by the wider $76,000–$77,000 support zone. The head-and-shoulders interpretation would gain credibility below the neckline, although the daily Supertrend near $72,786 remains an important barrier before the analyst’s $70,000 scenario can develop.

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.

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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