Who?

Geode Labs is a spin-out organization of the Ethereum Foundation dedicated to global Ethereum ecosystem development.

Prior to spinning out, we at Geode Labs were an internal EF team called Generalist Ecodev. As its name suggests, Generalist Ecodev served a “general” ecodev function. Which means, we did Ethereum ecodev with a broad, general mandate in mind and thought about Ethereum ecodev as an object in its own right.

For instance, just as protocol development is an object that consists of technical work streams like “scaling research” or “client development”, ecosystem development is an object that consists of work streams largely having to do with community infrastructure: “org building,” “developer growth,” “education or regional ecodev,” etc, etc. And within this frame, Generalist Ecodev accomplished a lot. We:

Helped facilitate the creation of orgs such as The Red Guild, 0xPARC, BuidlGuidl, ETHKipu
Built up education ecodev efforts by supporting professors and student groups at universities around the world such as TUM, Princeton, KTH, UTokyo, BITS Pilani.
Sourced and executed 100+ geo grants, reaching communities like ETHTaipei, EthereumTGU, ETHKL, SpaghettiETH, ETHCluj, Ethereum Argentina, and many others.
Among other wins

Over time, Generalist Ecodev came to focus more and more on the “regional or grassroots development” (“geo ecodev”) stream because of its importance: Ethereum is a global network that comes into form as a result of geographically distributed “local nodes” (technical, social, organizational). Ethereum is deeply rooted in geography. As a case-in-point, imagine that 100% of validator nodes or 100% of Ethereum devs were located in one region. Here, the role of physical geography in Ethereum becomes instantly clear: it’s existential to the censorship resistance of the network.

And so Ethereum needs people whose job it is to think about and work towards the geographic decentralization of strategic ecosystem variables. But crucially, we also need people to “do” and do with an emphasis on urgency, clean, crisp execution, and excellence.

Generalist Ecodev, now Geode Labs, has been one such example of a group of people.

What?

Geode Labs will pursue the geographic decentralization of Ethereum in a similar vein as our EF team had done. We will continue to source and support talented grassroots contributors and facilitate grants. And we’ll continue to do our brand of execution-oriented geo ecodev.

Concretely, Geode Labs an ecosystem product studio dedicated to global Ethereum ecosystem development and as such building a better Internet. Which means we will:

Build educational and community infra products and tools, e.g., (Local Ethereum, Ethereum Job Board, and more to come)
Facilitate Ethereum-focused grant giving
And execute on public goods work of global Ethereum ecosystem development

Why?

Geode Labs spun out of the Ethereum Foundation because there are virtually no organizations within the Ethereum ecosystem, outside the EF, that treat Ethereum ecodev as a first class citizen and execute towards a mandate of global Ethereum ecosystem development — much less geo ecodev. And we think that needs to change.

Ethereum requires and deserves a multitude of competent Ethereum-first orgs that come with their own unique perspectives and approaches to solving problems.

Just as the space values core protocol development and client diversity, we believe it needs to come to equally value core ecosystem development and community infra diversity. And just as Ethereum is more robust with multiple client teams, Ethereum will be more robust with multiple community infra teams.

Where?

Worldwide 🌍

How?

We will execute primarily by:

Building out educational and community infra products and tools
Facilitating grant-giving
And execute on public goods work of global Ethereum ecosystem development

When?

Now.

Ethereum must win now.