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Consensys Software Inc. is separating into two companies, the firm said Wednesday.
The existing corporate entity will continue and rebrand as MetaMask, running the wallet and its consumer products under co-founder Joe Lubin as chairman and chief executive. Its Protocols Group and institutional blockchain infrastructure business, including the Linea layer 2, becomes a newly formed company named Consensys.
The split separates Ethereum‘s most widely used wallet from one of its largest protocol development shops for the first time since Lubin founded the company in 2014. Each side gets its own chief executive, board and capital allocation: a consumer business now selling stablecoin yield and card spending, and an enterprise business selling tokenization infrastructure to banks.
Who Runs What
Mike Kriak becomes chief executive of the new Consensys, with David Cunningham as president and Declan Fox as chief product officer, according to the company’s post on X. Lubin will be executive chairman. That entity keeps Linea, the Besu Ethereum execution client used in permissioned enterprise networks, the Teku consensus client and Consensys’ Ethereum protocol work. The announcement does not say which company takes Infura, whose website now brands it as part of MetaMask Developer.
MetaMask keeps the wallet and the Money Account, the self-custodial product combining automated yield, card spending and swaps that launched on June 30 paying up to 4% on stablecoin balances. The company says the wallet has passed 100 million downloads across roughly 190 countries. Completion of the separation is expected by the end of 2026, and users need to take no action.
“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 said in the announcement.
The Institutional Pitch
Cunningham framed the institutional side around settlement plumbing. “Financial institutions and market infrastructure are moving to always-on operations with tokenization at the core,” he said. The release cited a June 2026 Citi report estimating tokenized assets could reach $5.5 trillion to $8.2 trillion by 2030.
Linea’s own numbers are smaller. The network holds $29 million in DeFi deposits, DefiLlama data show, against $38.1 million in stablecoins issued on it. LINEA trades at $0.002664, down 2.2% over 24 hours and 94% below its September 2025 all-time high for a market capitalization of $65.3 million. Another 960 million tokens unlock on Sept. 10
The token launched at roughly a $500 million market capitalization a year ago, and Lubin teased further rewards for holders after it halved within weeks.
The $MASK Question
Neither the press release nor Lubin’s accompanying blog post mentions a MetaMask token. Lubin confirmed on The Block’s podcast in September 2025 that a $MASK token was coming, and tied it to “the decentralization of certain aspects of the MetaMask platform.” The company registered a claim.metamask.io domain in October 2025 and has not shipped a token since.
The announcement is also silent on the initial public offering the company has been preparing. Axios reported in October 2025 that Consensys had hired JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to advise on a listing. Which of the two entities carries that process forward is unstated.
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Source: cryptonews.net