“Financial institutions and market infrastructure are moving to always-on operations with tokenization at the core,” said David Cunningham, President of Consensys.
Consensys has announced it will separate into two independent companies, MetaMask for consumer self-custodial finance and Consensys for Ethereum (ETH) protocols and institutional infrastructure, with the split expected to close by the end of 2026.
The reorganization ends a single-company structure that has held for over a decade. MetaMask takes the self-custodial wallet, which the company says has passed 100 million downloads across roughly 190 countries and facilitated trillions of dollars in cumulative transaction volume.
MetaMask Turns to Consumer Finance
The new Consensys keeps the Protocols Group, including the Linea Layer-2 network, the Besu execution client, and Teku, along with its tokenization and stablecoin work for banks and asset managers.
Joe Lubin, who co-founded Consensys, will step in full-time as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MetaMask while serving as Executive Chairman of Consensys. Mike Kriak will run Consensys as Chief Executive Officer, with David Cunningham as President.
“MetaMask grew out of that work into the world’s most widely used self-custodial wallet, and today it’s becoming something larger: a platform where people don’t just hold their assets, but manage their money in its many diverse forms and aspects. Stepping into this role full-time is a recognition that consumer finance deserves the same focus and ambition that we’ve brought to building Ethereum itself,” Lubin noted.
The independent company will stay Ethereum-first while building out Money Account, a self-custodial account that combines automated earning, instant spending and one-click trading in a single balance.
The push follows MetaMask’s launch of its own dollar stablecoin, mUSD, issued through Stripe-owned Bridge, part of a move into everyday payments that includes a Mastercard-linked card. Lubin has also confirmed MetaMask will issue its own token, with a DAO planned to fund the wallet’s growth.
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Consensys Keeps the Institutional Stack
Consensys will focus on the infrastructure banks and market operators use to move tokenized assets on-chain. Its Besu client already underpins permissioned EVM networks in traditional finance, and the firm set up the Swiss-based Linea Association to decentralize the Linea zkEVM network, which launched the LINEA token for governance.
“Financial institutions and market infrastructure are moving to always-on operations with tokenization at the core,” said David Cunningham, President of Consensys. “Consensys Software Inc. has built the open-source technology that is the foundation of this transition.”
Citi’s June 2026 “Tokenization 2030” report, cited in the announcement, estimated that tokenized assets could reach $5.5 trillion to $8.2 trillion by 2030. Lubin said the two companies “will keep building the same ecosystem, just with the focus each market now demands.”
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