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A brief analysis of Ethereum - Ethereum’s awkward situation in the modern market system of the digital economy - The formation and operation model of Ethereum Ethereum itself is not a company in the traditional sense, so it does not have the concepts of "employees" and "shareholder dividends." It is a decentralized, open source project maintained by the global community. Therefore, we cannot talk about Ethereum’s “employee wages” or “company profits” the same way we discuss Tencent or Alibaba. Its "profit" and "income" are achieved through a completely different mechanism. 1. Where does Ethereum’s “revenue” come from? (Who is making money? ) The Ethereum network itself does not make money, but the parties involved in maintaining and using the network can earn income in a variety of ways. It can be mainly divided into the following categories: 1. Stakeholders (Verifiers) - Core Network Maintainers How to make money: Since the "merger" upgrade in 2022, Ethereum has adopted a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism. Users need to pledge at least 32 ETH (or participate through a pledge pool) to become a "verifier", responsible for verifying transactions, packaging blocks, and maintaining network security. Sources of income: Staking rewards: The system will issue new ETH as rewards, which is the main income. The annualized rate of return fluctuates between 4.2% and 6.8% (2025 data), depending on the total amount of pledges across the network. Transaction fee (tip): The "tip" (priority fee) paid by the user when making a transaction, which will be directly given to the validator who successfully packages the block. MEV (Maximum Extractable Value)**: Through complex transaction ordering strategies (such as "front-running" arbitrage transactions), validators can obtain additional income. This is an important part of the earnings, but also controversial. Who are the “employees”: These validators can be seen as the “technical operations staff” of the network. They are not employees on a fixed salary, but participants who are rewarded based on their contribution. 2. DeFi (decentralized finance) participants How to make money: Lending, trading, insurance and other financial applications built on Ethereum (such as Uniswap, Aave). Sources of income: Liquidity provider: provides funds to the trading pool and earns a share of transaction fees. Lending interest: Lending assets to earn interest. Yield Farming: Transfer funds between multiple protocols through complex strategies to earn additional token rewards. 3. Developers and project parties How to make money: Develop decentralized applications (dApps), issue tokens or NFTs on Ethereum. Sources of income: Service fee/transaction fee: Such as the transaction commission charged by the NFT platform. Token sale: Project tokens are sold for financing through ICO or IDO when the project is launched. Direct sales: For example, artists sell NFT artworks. 4. Miners/computing power providers (historical mode) Note: The Ethereum mainnet no longer uses the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism, so mining is a thing of the past. However, some forked chains (such as ETC) are still running, and their revenue model is to obtain block rewards and handling fees through computing power competition. 2. How do the core team and contributors earn income? While Ethereum does not have “employees,” it does have core developers and researchers driving the project forward. Their main sources of income include: Ethereum Foundation (EF): The foundation will fund core development teams (such as client teams Geth, Prysm, etc.), research teams and community activities. Members of these teams serve as “salaried professionals” whose salaries are paid by the foundation. Other funding agencies: Companies such as Consensys and Blockchains LLC also employ a large number of Ethereum developers. Community donations and bounties: Some projects or individuals offer bounties for specific development tasks or bug fixes. Summarize Simply put, Ethereum’s “income” system is decentralized and ecologically driven: Network maintainers (validators) earn ETH rewards by staking and providing services. Application builders (developers) earn revenue by creating valuable products. Fund providers (DeFi users) earn revenue by providing liquidity or lending assets. Content creators (NFT artists) make money by selling digital assets. This is completely different from the traditional company's "company profit->shareholder dividend->employee salary" model. Ethereum is more like a network ecosystem, in which participants obtain corresponding returns by contributing resources (funds, computing power, technology, creativity). Why can’t it be called an “economic ecosystem”? Because it cannot produce the materials for life-sustaining clothing, food, shelter, and transportation: food, fruits, vegetables... It cannot be separated from the real economic ecosystem, and the real economic ecosystem can do without it. New data infrastructure New data infrastructure ＜01.＞ A brief analysis of Ethereum The relationship between Ethereum and Consensys Does Consensys belong to Ethereum? No, ConsenSys is not part of Ethereum, but the two are extremely closely related. It can be understood like this: Ethereum is a decentralized open source blockchain platform, just like the Android operating system. ConsenSys is a technology company founded and developed in the Ethereum ecosystem, just like a top software company specializing in developing Android applications and tools (for example, Google is to Android, but Consensys is not the "owner" of Ethereum). The key link between them is the founder: ConsenSys was founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin in 2015 after Ethereum went online. Therefore, ConsenSys is one of the most important builders and promoters in the Ethereum ecosystem, but it is an independently operated commercial entity and is not part of the Ethereum Foundation. ConsenSys' core business: developing a series of "infrastructure" products for the Ethereum ecosystem, the most famous of which include: MetaMask: The world's most popular crypto wallet, with over 30 million monthly active users. Infura: Provides developers with stable and scalable Ethereum node API services. Truffle: The leading Ethereum smart contract development framework. Linea: Layer 2 expansion solution based on zkEVM launched by ConsenSys. Consensys’ shareholding structure ConsenSys is a private technology company, and its ownership structure has not been fully disclosed. However, based on public financing information, we can sort out the main investors and valuation: Founders and early backers: Founder Joseph Lubin is one of the company's largest shareholders. Early investors include Digital Currency Group (DCG) and others. Major investment institutions (based on financing information in 2022 and 2025): ConsenSys has completed multiple rounds of financing and attracted top global capital, including: ParaFi Capital: Led $450 million in financing in 2022. Microsoft: Strategic investor, marking the tech giant’s recognition of Web3. SoftBank: Japanese technology investment giant. Temasek: Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. Coinbase Ventures: The investment arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Dragonfly Capital: A well-known venture capital focusing on the blockchain field. Other investors include Protocol Labs, Third Point, etc. Company valuation: After completing US$450 million in financing in 2022, the valuation will reach US$7 billion. According to the "2025 Global Unicorn List", ConsenSys ranks 107th on the list with an enterprise valuation of 51 billion yuan (approximately US$7 billion). To summarize: Relationship to Ethereum: Not an affiliation. ConsenSys is an independent company founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin and is one of the most important builders and promoters of the Ethereum ecosystem. Company nature: Private technology company focused on Ethereum infrastructure development. Core products: MetaMask wallet, Infura node service, Truffle development framework, Linea zk-Rollup, etc. Equity structure: Not fully disclosed. Founder Joseph Lubin is the main shareholder, and investors include Microsoft, SoftBank, Temasek, Coinbase Ventures, ParaFi Capital and other top global institutions. Latest valuation: approximately US$7 billion (2025 data). So, in a nutshell: ConsenSys is the “son of Ethereum,” but it’s an independent, venture capital-backed web tech company, not a “subsidiary” or “owner” of Ethereum. Joseph Lubin Born in Canada, he holds dual citizenship of Canada and the United States. Co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys, he calls himself a pioneering thinker and entrepreneur in the fields of blockchain and Web3.  Educational background Princeton University Degree: BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduation year: 1987 age questionable Regular admission age: In the United States, undergraduate students usually enter college at the age of 18 and graduate around the age of 22. Calculated year of birth: If he graduated in 1987 around the age of 22, he should have been born around 1965. That means he is 60 years old. However, reports from many authoritative financial media (such as Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg and Hurun Report) in 2024 and 2025 clearly mentioned his age as 53 or 54 years old. For example, if according to media reports in 2025 he is 54 years old, this means that he was born in 1971 and completed college at the age of 16. GDJJOP GDJJOP Joseph Lubin Career experience is written in a bright and clear way 1. Early career in technology and finance for 26 years (1987 - 2013) Artificial intelligence and robotics fields: After graduation, he worked in the Princeton Robotics Laboratory early on in the research and development of machine vision, artificial intelligence and robotics. Goldman Sachs: Position: Technology Vice President, Private Wealth Management He once led the development of Goldman Sachs' automated trading system. Quantitative Hedge Funds: Once ran a quantitative hedge fund. Other areas: His career spans many cutting-edge fields such as computer security and financial technology. 2. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Era (2013 - Present) 2013: Delve into the Bitcoin white paper and be blown away by its decentralized philosophy. After being introduced by Anthony Di Iorio, another co-founder of Ethereum, I met 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin. After studying the Ethereum white paper released by Vitalik, he became one of the strongest early supporters of the Ethereum project and was one of the largest investors during the 2014 Ethereum ICO. 2014: Resigned from Goldman Sachs and devoted himself to the construction of Ethereum ecosystem. Use personal funds to support the establishment of Ethereum's Swiss legal entity (EthSuisse) and provide funding and resources to the early development team. July 2015: After the Ethereum mainnet was launched, ConsenSys was founded. Vision: Create a "software studio and startup network" focused on decentralized applications (dApps), infrastructure and tools for the Ethereum development zone, solving the problem of "without practical applications, Ethereum cannot develop". 2015 to present - ConsenSys: Developed ConsenSys into one of the largest blockchain software companies in the world, known as the "cornerstone of Web3" or the "hydropower system of the Web3 world". Successfully incubated and operated multiple core projects in the Ethereum ecosystem: MetaMask: The world's most popular decentralized wallet, with over 30 million monthly active users. Infura: Provides node API services for more than 90% of Ethereum dApps. Truffle: The most mainstream Ethereum smart contract development framework. Codefi: Provides DeFi and tokenization tools for enterprises. Linea: Layer 2 expansion solution based on zkEVM. ConsenSys cooperates with top global institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Mastercard, and the United Nations to promote the commercial application of blockchain technology. Successfully raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ConsenSys, with the company's valuation reaching US$7 billion in 2022, and it continues to be included in the Hurun Global Unicorn List. MetaMask: The world's most popular decentralized wallet, with over 30 million monthly active users. Infura: Provides node API services for more than 90% of Ethereum dApps. Truffle: The most mainstream Ethereum smart contract development framework. Codefi: Provides DeFi and tokenization tools for enterprises. Linea: Layer 2 expansion solution based on zkEVM. On September 29, 2025, Swift CEO Javier Perez-Tasso announced that Swife will add a blockchain-based classified expansion to its full technology infrastructure. The blockchain-based shared ledger - a secure, real-time log of transactions between financial institutions - will start with a conceptual prototype with Consensys. It will record, sequence and validate transactions and enforce rules through smart contracts. The ledger will be built for interoperability, both with existing and emerging networks, while maintaining the trust, resilience and compliance synonymous with Swift and critical to the secure functioning of global finance.（原文网址：swift.com)  ConsenSys  ConsenSys ConsenSys  Ethereum ConsenSye ＜02.＞ Predator OR Hero Joseph Rubin's wishful thinking Distribution of Benefits to ConsenSys ConsenSys is a privately held, for-profit company founded and controlled by Joseph Lubin. It has developed core products such as MetaMask and Infura, which have created huge value for the Ethereum ecosystem, but their commercial benefits are mainly owned by ConsenSys and its shareholders (including Lubin). Fairness dispute: Ethereum is a decentralized public product, and its success is the result of the joint contributions of developers, miners/verifiers, and users around the world. As a co-founder, Lubin's "enclosure" of a company and exclusive use of huge commercial benefits may indeed be regarded as a "rent-seeking" behavior, which is unfair to other early contributors (such as Vitalik Buterin himself who did not start a company of the same scale). View from the other side: Lubin not only invested money, but also devoted more than ten years of full-time work, leading a team of hundreds of people to build an ecological "hydropower and coal". Without ConsenSys, Ethereum’s developer experience and user growth would likely be much slower. The market uses financing and user choice to "vote" to recognize its value. Comparison: Although Vitalik Buterin holds a large amount of ETH, he has never founded a for-profit company of similar scale and has donated ETH many times, which is more in line with the image of a "pure idealist". Lubin's path is more like "constructive entrepreneur". As a result, Lubin's role is more like an "ecological landlord" or an "infrastructure tycoon", which is contrary to the ideal of Ethereum's decentralization. The white paper of Ethereum was written by Vitalik Buterin (19 years old at the time), and the core protocol was implemented in code in a very short time by a group of anonymous or semi-anonymous global developers (such as Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, etc.). Many of them "only understand technology and do not understand business." Lubin was not the first person to write the code, but he was probably the first person to see that "this technology requires a company to implement it." He used Wall Street's resources, connections and business acumen to provide an "incubator" for these technologies. However, as a private company built on Ethereum, ConsenSys's equity is mainly held by Lubin and external investors (such as SoftBank and Temasek). Developers who write code for Ethereum do not automatically become shareholders of ConsenSys. Didn't even get a penny in return. Lubin's "opportunity" comes precisely from his age advantage, which squeezes out all the dregs from those idealistic young technicians who "only understand technology but don't understand business." His keen business insight did make technological idealists pay a heavy price for being "marginalized". We all know that programmers who spend their youth and lives writing programs day and night. Lubin shows everyone the gap between creators and builders, and how technological idealism is swallowed up by the collusion of business and power. He is indeed a "betrayer" - using open source ideals to build his own private "empire".  Lubin’s ambition and greed are based on the assumption that “Ethereum is the only choice”. Today, that assumption is crumbling.  Why are businesses (especially financial institutions) turning away from Joseph Lubin and ConsenSys? Trust issues: Lubin is a "crypto native" and his ultimate ideal is to replace the traditional financial system. They can use blockchain technology, but they will never trust someone who wants to "subvert themselves" to build the core system. For example: Boeing will not ask Musk to design the next generation passenger aircraft, because Musk's goal is to let SpaceX replace the aviation industry. Compliance and Responsibility: Enterprises need partners who are accountable, auditable, and have legal entities. ConsenSys is a private company, and its products (such as MetaMask) are "unmanaged," meaning that if something goes wrong, the user is solely responsible. Banks cannot say to customers: “You lost your money? Ask MetaMask, we just integrated it. ” This is unacceptable under financial regulation. 🔹 Why will the central bank never pay attention to him? National Security and Monetary Sovereignty: Currency is one of the last bastions of national sovereignty. The euro is not only a trading tool, but also a symbol of the EU's political union. The mission of the central bank is to maintain the stability of legal currency, control inflation, and ensure financial security. It will never allow a Canadian-American entrepreneur (Lubin) to "diversion" the influence and public financial gains of fiat currency into his own private use through his company (ConsenSys) or the protocols he supports (such as decentralized stablecoins). The central bank is developing digital fiat currency, which is a centralized, supervised, and central bank-controlled system. Ideological conflict: Lubin’s ideal is “borderless money.” The central bank’s ideal is “the digital extension of sovereign currency.” The two are fundamentally opposed. The central bank would rather build its own chain than "outsource" the future of its country's legal currency to a private Web3 company. Moreover, Lubin himself is not a technical expert, nor an expert in cutting-edge cryptography such as the Ethereum core protocol. He does not write Solidity smart contracts, nor does he design consensus algorithms. He must rely heavily on the technical team. The success of ConsenSys is essentially the result of his role as an "organizer" and "resource provider", gathering a large number of top engineers. When the technical direction undergoes drastic changes (such as from PoW to PoS, from the main chain to Layer 2), his decision-making relies more on the judgment of technical executives rather than first-principles insights. Why are Ethereum no longer the first choice for institutions? 1. Gas fee (Transaction Cost) When the Ethereum main network is congested, a single transaction fee can reach tens or even hundreds of dollars, which is completely unacceptable for enterprise-level applications (such as supply chain, payment). 2. Transaction speed (Throughput) Ethereum processes about 15-30 transactions per second, which is much lower than Visa (tens of thousands of TPS). 3. Supervision and Compliance (Compliance) Public Ethereum is anonymous, and banks and governments need auditable, supervised, and KYC/AML systems. 4. Control: Organizations do not want their core business to rely on a public network that is “out of their control”. Institutions build their own private/permissioned chains China: Central Bank Digital RMB (e-CNY), CIPS system. Europe: The European Union is advancing the Euro Stablecoin (EUROe) and Digital Euro (Digital Euro) projects. United States: JPM Coin from JPMorgan Chase, internal blockchain system from Bank of America. Middle East: The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia promote their own digital currencies and cross-border payment networks. Technology stack: They often use Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda or self-developed frameworks. These are permissioned blockchains and do not rely on Ethereum. GDJJOP GDJJOP Lubin, the air currency circle and the negotiation of power Lubin and ConsenSys, as well as the private encryption circle, donated to Trump in the 2024 election cycle. Trump did change his stance late in the campaign, declaring that "the United States will become the capital of encryption" and promising to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler after taking office. Gensler was indeed pressured by Trump to resign in early 2025. On March 28, 2025, after the new chairman of the US SEC took office, he immediately dropped the lawsuits against Kraken, ConsenSys and Cumberland and issued relevant announcements. In April 2025, U.S. cryptocurrency regulation reached a historic turning point—President Trump officially signed a bill to abolish the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) controversial tax reporting rules for decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. In 2025, Trump used USDT to withdraw US$112 million in cash from TRON to repay the mortgage loan of Trump Tower. On July 18, 2025, U.S. President Trump officially signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (Genius Act), the CLARITY Regulatory Clarity Act, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act at the White House.   Trump family   Trump family   Trump family Ethereum ConsenSye ＜03＞ real change never from those People who just want to make money “"Borderless currency"? Lubin has preached countless times about "borderless finance", "open finance", and "a bank that anyone can access." But the reality is: the United States uses SWIFT to sanction Iran and Russia, and the Eurozone has strict controls on capital flows. As long as the country still exists, currency is the country's sovereignty and cannot be violated or robbed. You cannot use a piece of code to bypass the central bank to make money and issue currency. This is not called "subversion", it is called "seeking death." This is not a technological innovation, it is theft of public interests. So, when Lubin talks about "borderless money," he's either: Naivety (not believing in the power of sovereignty), or hypocrisy (knowing it’s impossible, but using this slogan to attract believers and investment). Judging from the fact that since 2014, he has been borrowing the "idealistic" financing of "Ethereum" to make money, he is obviously not naive. So, it's more likely the latter. Lubin, what he really understood on Wall Street was not finance, but arbitrage. Real financiers (such as Goldman Sachs, Bridgewater): Understand macro cycles, interest rates, geopolitics, and risk management. Their tools are derivatives, hedging, balance sheet management. Lubin's "finance": converting US dollars into USDC, and then "mining" through the DeFi protocol to earn 10% income. The essence is to attract reserves at high interest rates + speculative leverage. The collapse of Luna in 2022 and the thunderstorm of FTX in 2023 have proven the fragility of this model. He has no ability to deal with systemic risks. Once the Fed raises interest rates or the market panics, the entire "high-yield" narrative will collapse instantly. He even doesn’t understand the nature of trust - people trust the U.S. dollar because the United States has military, taxes and laws. People trust the U.S. dollar because there are banks, central banks, supervision, and insurance mechanisms behind it—and these are all guarantees that can only be provided by the power of a centralized state. "Opportunists" who seize the opportunity to make money and have similar tastes with Trump: 1. Core driving force: Lubin: Wealth accumulation and personal influence, Trump: Power, wealth, attention 2. Means: Lubin: Packaging business empire with “decentralization” and “Web3 revolution” Trump: Use "Make America Great Again" to package personal interests 3. Attitude towards rules: Lubin maneuvers around the regulatory edges, uses political cash, and uses his power to push policies that benefit him Trump: Openly challenging the Constitution and the government system, using presidential power to cash in and making huge amounts of ill-gotten wealth for his family. 4. Supporter base: Lubin: Crypto believer, speculator, IT technology idealist Trump: "Forgotten American", anti-establishment 5. Relationship with power: Lubin: Donate to politicians in exchange for regulation that confuses right and wrong. Trump: He became a politician, directly controlled power, passed new bills, and made money for his family to do whatever he wanted. 6. They are essentially the same type of people: They are all "rule exploiters" rather than real subversives or creators. They all use grand narratives (Web3 revolution/MAGA) to mobilize the masses, but in the end it is themselves and their small circles who benefit. They are all frantically grabbing money during a window period when the old system is about to collapse and the new order is yet to be determined. The future is quantum computers - Lubin is not at the forefront of technology at all Quantum computers, this is the real “dimensionality reduction strike”. Ethereum’s encryption algorithms (such as ECDSA) may be vulnerable to quantum computers. The real next-generation technology is quantum cryptography (PQC), AI-driven smart contracts, neural interfaces and digital identity integration. What is Lubin doing? Promote MetaMask wallet. Sell Infura API. Lobbying the SEC and the Trump family...and the air currency community of interest to design how to break up the euro and replicate the next Trump in Europe... These are the current "real estate" and "utility bills" businesses of Web3, not the future. Perhaps, he is like the telecommunications giant in 2000, busy laying copper cables, but did not see the arrival of the fiber optic and wireless era. He is not building the future, he is reaping the final dividends. He is not an idealist, but a businessman wrapped in idealism. He is not a financier but a regulatory arbitrageur. He is not a technology prophet, but a middleman in technology application. His similarity to Trump reveals that in the age of technology, "greed" will still grow and spread crazily once it finds the right soil. We need to be constantly vigilant and not be deceived. His company, ConsenSys, may still be around for a few more years, and MetaMask may continue to be popular. But when the real technological revolution (such as quantum computing, AGI) arrives, the "Web3" money-making magic he preaches will become a footnote in history as time goes by. History may remember Lubin as a "trendy maker of the times", but it will never call him a "great man who changed the world" - because real change never comes from those who have no bottom line and just want to make money by any means necessary. Information | Tongyi Qianwen Cover | Universe Text|Myself Pictures | Network 2025 10.05  WeChat｜xinxilianlian Weibo｜xinxilianlian |
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