Consensys, the Ethereum software company behind MetaMask, is splitting into two businesses. MetaMask will become a standalone consumer company, while a second entity will hold the firm’s institutional blockchain infrastructure and Ethereum protocols work, according to a report by Cointelegraph on Wednesday.
The restructuring separates the wallet business that serves tens of millions of retail users from the parts of the company that sell infrastructure to banks, custodians and enterprises. Consensys has not announced leadership assignments for the two entities or a timeline beyond the current quarter, and the company has not said whether the split prepares either unit for a sale or outside investment. Founder Joseph Lubin is expected to remain involved with both sides during the transition.
MetaMask is the prize in the consumer half. The browser wallet and mobile app remain the default entry point into Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, with more than 30 million monthly active users reported at past peaks. The wallet has spent the last two years adding features that push it past simple asset storage: a built-in swap aggregator, bridging across rollups, a stablecoin balance view and a crypto debit card program with Mastercard announced in early 2025. Revenue comes mainly from swap fees, and the swap business grew sharply during the memecoin trading waves of 2024 and 2025.
The institutional side carries older and less visible assets. Consensys runs infrastructure used by financial institutions to operate Ethereum validators, provides Quorum, a permissioned version of Ethereum that JPMorgan developed and later took independent, and contributes to core Ethereum protocol research. That business has steady enterprise contracts but nowhere near the growth story of the consumer wallet, and internal budgets have favored MetaMask for years.
Why split now
The move follows months of pressure on the company. Consensys cut its workforce twice in 2023 and 2024, and its long-running lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission over MetaMask’s swap feature ended in 2025 when the SEC dropped the case. Lubin has spoken publicly about needing a new ownership structure to let each business move at its own pace. Rival wallet developers have made inroads during the same stretch: Coinbase Wallet, Phantom and Rainbow all gained share through the 2025 and 2026 trading cycles, and Phantom’s multichain push pulled younger users away from Ethereum-native products.
Competition is not the only driver. Tokenization has pulled large financial firms into public blockchain infrastructure, and the institutions doing it want vendors that speak their language on compliance, uptime and reporting. That is a different sales motion from shipping a consumer wallet app, and companies that try to run both motions under one roof tend to starve one of them. PayPal, Societe Generale and Franklin Templeton all launched tokenized products in the past 18 months, and most chose infrastructure partners over building in house. A focused institutional firm can chase those contracts without a consumer product roadmap competing for engineering time.
What it means for users and for Ethereum
For users, the practical effect should be minimal at first. MetaMask keys, seed phrases and accounts stay where they are, and the wallet’s roadmap, including the Snaps extension ecosystem, continues under the new structure. The bigger questions are commercial: whether a standalone MetaMask issues its own token, a step Consensys has hinted at without committing, and whether the institutional firm keeps the Consensys name or rebrands. A MetaMask token would rank among the largest potential airdrops in crypto history given the wallet’s user base.
The Ethereum ecosystem has seen this pattern before. Gnosis split its wallet and protocol arms years ago, and Offchain Labs absorbed several Ethereum tooling teams as consolidation picked up through 2025. Sector watchers have expected a MetaMask separation since Consensys took outside funding at a reported $7 billion valuation, a price that rested almost entirely on the wallet’s growth rather than the enterprise contracts.
If the split closes cleanly, expect the consumer unit to move faster on retail products and the infrastructure unit to chase bank deals the combined company was too stretched to prioritize. Watch two signals in the coming months: token plans at the wallet, and whether the institutional arm lands a marquee bank or custodian client within the first two quarters as a standalone operation.
discussion