This Start-Up Incubator Wants to Build the Next Internet on Ethereum
*By Tanaya Macheel and Jacqueline Corba*
In a converted warehouse in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, dozens of ambitious developers are working to build blockchain applications that will change how the world buys, sells, and trades most anything.
"The kinds of things that we're building here are going to be the foundational elements or the building blocks of economic, social, and political systems over the next few decades," said Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum who launched the Brooklyn startup incubator known as Consensys in 2014.
Consensys has brought together app developers to build new tools and businesses on Ethereum, the blockchain-based distributed computing platform with a native cryptocurrency that is second only to Bitcoin in market value. But unlike Bitcoin's blockchain, which allows coin holders to store and exchange digital currency, Ethereum enables developers to build applications for tasks like bookkeeping, accounting, and even real estate transactions.
“It's not a little startup," said Lubin, whose personal net worth is estimated by Forbes to be as high as $5 billion. “It's here to stay and there will be lots and lots of other decentralized protocols — maybe some that do what Ethereum does, in different ways."
The technologists and entrepreneurs working at the Consensys warehouse collaborate on ways to expand Ethereum's infrastructure ー a practice they call "mesh" ー as they compete to finish their own apps.
"It means your colleagues are stretching you, your colleagues relying on you," said Igor Lilic, CEO of Cellarius, one of the early Consensys companies. "As a result of that chaos again, breeds a lot of innovation."
Consensys has about 1,000 employees across 14 offices in six cities, including San Francisco, Toronto, London, Bucharest and Dubai. Analysts estimate the company spends more than $100 million a year, and though the its mission is to create decentralized applications, nearly all of Ethereum's apps run on a proprietary service called Infura.
Tech incubators have been successful in creating new apps that disrupt existing businesses. With Consensys, Lubin hopes to make those transformative apps part of the Ethereum network’s foundation.
"The ability to embed your project in this mesh essentially gives you the ability to super charge it," he said.
As blockchain and the use of cryptocurrency grows, more companies are likely to start incubators like Consensys. The financial technology firm Ripple launched an effort this year to create a digital [ecosystem for its cryptocurrency, XRP] (https://cheddar.com/videos/ripple-is-tapping-into-start-ups-that-use-xrp).
Lubin said that other tech incubators must maintain their focus and avoid adopting the habits of old finance and mainstream corporate skunkworks that become innovation theater without useful products.
"What we're most focused on and most excited about is building the decentralized World Wide Web," said Lubin. "I think being part of a big incubator will facilitate this collaborative ethos."
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
