Although Consensys is little known to the general public, it has had a considerable impact on the Ethereum ecosystem. While the company has recently been in the news thanks to its partnership with Swift, let’s take a look back at this empire, which is behind the MetaMask wallet, the Linea layer 2, and many other infrastructures on which the famous smart contract blockchain is based.
Consensys, the company building the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem
In the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem, the name Consensys is sometimes unknown to the general public. However, this company is the main infrastructure provider for the famous smart contract blockchain.
Consensys has recently been in the news for its partnership with Swift, the launch of its Linea token, and the latest developments in its MetaMask wallet. With this in mind, now is a good time to take a look at the sectors covered by this company founded by Joseph Lubin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum.
MetaMask
Launched in 2016, MetaMask is probably the most famous of the Web3 wallets. Initially a simple web extension, the wallet has evolved over the years to also become a mobile app, and has integrated more and more features such as swaps, staking, and even a bank card.
Faced with growing competition from other wallets, such as Phantom, MetaMask has also opened up to environments that are not compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), first with Solana (SOL) and soon with Bitcoin (BTC).
In addition, the mMUSD stablecoin was recently launched, now capitalized at $52.54 million, while a token is also in the works. Furthermore, we should also highlight the integration of perpetual trading with Hyperliquid, as well as the upcoming arrival of Polymarket’s prediction markets.
Linea
Among the multitude of Ethereum layer 2 solutions is LINEA, developed by Consensys.
With a mainnet launched in July 2023, the network has been making headlines recently with its LINEA token, deployed on September 10. What’s more, Swift has unveiled plans to conduct experiments on real-time cross-border payments on Linea, alongside financial institutions from 16 different countries, including Crédit Agricole, JPMorgan Chase, Société Générale — FORGE, and Citi.
As for the LINEA token, it still has to prove itself, with a price of $0.015 and a market capitalization of $237.1 million.
In terms of network adoption, Linea ranks as Ethereum’s third layer 2 in terms of total value locked (TVL) behind Base and Arbitrum, with $1.05 billion.
As we discussed this week in the context of the massive Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, Infura is a provider of “node-as-a-service.” To communicate with a blockchain, it is necessary to use Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocols in order to “talk” to a node on the network.
As an essential link for decentralized applications (dApps), this is where Infura adds value, allowing application developers to focus on the code without worrying about hosting their own nodes.
To date, Infura offers services on at least 20 networks, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, IPFS, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Linea.
Besu and Teku
Ethereum’s architecture is based on an execution layer and a consensus layer. To put it simply, the execution layer is the operational part, which manages smart contracts and transactions, while the consensus layer manages the staking part, among other things, by validating and finalizing blocks.
To function, a validator must use software for each layer, called a client. This is where Besu and Teku come in, which are clients for the execution and consensus layers, respectively, representing 16% for the former and 13.86% for the latter:
Staking
Logically, Consensys is heavily involved in staking on Ethereum, with more than 33,000 validators deployed.
In this area, Consensys covers several aspects of staking, whether at the individual level directly from MetaMask, or more broadly, via an API system to be integrated into its application, or at the institutional level.
A presence at all levels
Of course, this is only a partial list of all the pillars in which Consensys is involved.
We could also have mentioned Diligence, a platform dedicated to the security and auditing of smart contracts, or the investment arm Consensys Mesh, which currently boasts more than 150 names in its portfolio, including Starkware, Coinhouse, Blast, Kaiko, and Sorare, to name but a few.
In addition, the company has also recently distinguished itself by leading Sharplink’s $425 million fundraising round, making the company the second-largest Ethereum Treasury Company to date, with 859,853 ETH. Following this, Joseph Lubin took over as chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Consensys’ own valuation is difficult to estimate at present, but it should be noted that in 2022, a Series D funding round pushed it up to $7 billion.
