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MetaMask’s co-founder has left, leaving behind a little fox included in the IPO prospectus

深潮TechFlow

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Are you still using that sly fox?

Original Title: "MetaMask Co-Founder Leaves, Leaving Behind a Little Fox Cub Squashed Into an IPO Prospectus"
Original Author: Ku Li, DeepTech TechFlow

The person who built this little fox doesn't want to build anymore.

On April 23, MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay announced his official departure from Consensys, ending a ten-year development career. The reason was professional burnout, wanting to spend more time with family.

MetaMask, perhaps the most recognized product application in the crypto world. The logo of that little orange fox is almost universally recognized by anyone who has used a crypto wallet. In 2016, Finlay and another co-founder Aaron Davis developed this browser extension within Consensys, allowing ordinary people to interact with Ethereum without running a full node.

Over the past decade, according to statistics from multiple third-party platforms, the global installation volume has exceeded one billion, with approximately 30 million monthly active users, and the swap feature has generated over $325 million in fee revenue.

Checking public information, it was found that Finlay has hardly given interviews in the past ten years. Previously coding at Apple, deep down he should still be an engineer, not someone who is here for public image.

When a person like this says they are tired, they usually really are. It's just that the timing of his departure is hard not to overthink.

Just a few months ago, Consensys brought in JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as IPO advisors, with Axios reporting that the goal is to go public as soon as this year.

The company's last funding round was in 2022, with a valuation of $7 billion, and has since gone through at least two rounds of layoffs. And the $MASK token has been teasing its debut since 2021, but after five years, there has been no real progress.

It seems that it's not so necessary for a wallet to launch a token, and what's even scarier is that the little fox cub seems not so necessary for everyone anymore.

It's the default little fox, but not a must-have

In many dApp development documents in the past, the first step was "Please install MetaMask." It was the default wallet in this industry, just like ten years ago when you finished installing Windows and saw that blue IE browser icon on your desktop.

The issue is that defaults and preferences are no longer the same thing.

Phantom started out as a Solana wallet company, later expanding to Ethereum and Bitcoin. In January 2025, they raised $150 million in Series C funding, valuing the company at $3 billion.

According to whales.market's on-chain data analysis, Phantom's annual revenue is approximately $108 million, while MetaMask has around $46 million. This is more than a twofold difference, considering that Phantom entered the market five years after MetaMask.

In 2021, Phantom began its journey on Solana, witnessing the entire process of Solana's ecosystem from recovery to explosion. As per Helius, by 2024, Solana's DEX trading volume had surpassed Ethereum's, with the total on-chain application revenue reaching $2.39 billion in 2025, a 46% year-on-year increase. In 2025, 725 million new wallets conducted their first Solana transaction. As these users entered, Phantom was right there at the door.

And what about MetaMask? It wasn't until May 2025 that they launched native Solana support. Prior to that, users who wanted to interact with Solana through MetaMask had to install a third-party plugin called Snaps, an experience akin to installing Chrome's engine on Internet Explorer...

Over these five years, Solana transformed from a network almost killed by the FTX rug pull to one with the highest trading volume. As Solana's valuation surged, Phantom also saw its valuation rise, securing $150 million in Series C funding at the beginning of 2025, valuing the company at $3 billion.

In the author's opinion, MetaMask's slowness is not just a technical limitation; there is also an identity issue. MetaMask is Ethereum's offspring, and the founder of its parent company ConsenSys is Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin.

For Phantom, supporting Solana was an expansion, but for MetaMask, it felt like a betrayal. By the time the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem indeed slowed down and cross-chain became necessary, the window of opportunity had already passed.

Of course, MetaMask's compatibility within the Ethereum ecosystem remains the strongest, with nearly all dApps on EVM chains considering it the default testing option, and its 30 million monthly active users are real.

However, this stickiness doesn't stem from product strength but from migration costs. Migration costs can only prevent existing users from leaving; they cannot stop new users from coming.

Someone who won't start using the blockchain until 2025 will likely be recommended a wallet that is no longer MetaMask.

The Sly Fox Waiting for a Better Price

The product is lagging, people are leaving, but Consensys is going public.

According to Axios, in October 2025, Consensys hired JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as IPO advisors, aiming to go public as early as this year. If successful, this will be the first company deeply integrated with Ethereum's core infrastructure to land on the U.S. stock market.

But in the same year they brought on the investment banks, Consensys went through at least two rounds of layoffs.

In October 2024, they cut 20% of the workforce, about 160 people, with CEO Joe Lubin citing macroeconomic pressures and regulatory uncertainty as the reasons. By mid-2025, another round of layoffs took place, this time framed as "driving profitability."

On the well-known job-seeking platform Glassdoor, employee reviews are even harsher than the layoffs themselves.

Some wrote that the company goes through at least two rounds of layoffs every year, always letting go of frontline contributors while the management is never affected. Others mentioned that after expressing interest in career advancement to their superiors, their names appeared on the next round of layoff lists.

We don't know how much of these reviews are emotional and how much are factual. But a company that undergoes significant layoffs before rushing to IPO, while simultaneously crushing employee morale, is a signal in itself.

And then there's the story of the MASK token.

In 2021, Lubin tweeted "Wen $MASK?", causing a stir in the community. In 2022, he further explained that they were planning to create a token plus a DAO, advancing "progressive decentralization." In May 2025, Finlay, in an interview with The Block, was asked about the token's arrival, and his response turned into a maybe.

For users, the MASK token is a carrot hanging in front, encouraging continued usage, interaction, and contributing on-chain data to MetaMask. For Consensys, the token is a card yet to be played before the IPO.

Releasing the token too early dilutes the valuation narrative, releasing it too late causes the community to lose patience. Now that the co-founders have left, the token is still unreleased, but the IPO is on its way.

The competitive position of MetaMask is declining, and this trend is unlikely to reverse in the short term. However, MetaMask's brand awareness remains high, with that iconic orange fox logo still being the most recognizable symbol in the world of crypto.

The depreciation rate of brand value and product value is different, with brand value deteriorating at a slower pace.

For crypto companies, the IPO often sells not the product, but the brand and narrative. Phrases like "Ethereum infrastructure," "Web3 gateway," "world's largest self-custodial wallet"... These labels were still effective on pitch decks a few years ago. Lubin himself is a co-founder of Ethereum, a status that inherently impresses traditional investors.

Therefore, ConsenSys's choice is to capitalize on the current brand value, the open regulatory environment, and Wall Street's enthusiasm for crypto infrastructure by placing MetaMask within a publicly traded company shell for the secondary market to price.

Silence Is Not Golden

Co-founder Finlay's departure received a tepid response from the crypto community. There were no lengthy goodbye posts flooding social media, no sentimental reflections on "the end of an era," and most people didn't even care about the news.

The departure or stay of MetaMask's co-founder generated less buzz than a certain Key Opinion Leader (KOL) complaining about shrinking event swag at a conference in Hong Kong.

This in itself highlights some issues.

MetaMask is a rare case in the crypto industry. It holds the largest brand presence, yet its founders have almost no personal brand.

In an industry where the founder is the most significant marketing asset, MetaMask's two founders have chosen to remain behind the scenes. The product speaks for them, until the product can't speak anymore.

The author believes that at its core, MetaMask's story is a story about "defaults."

In the tech industry, becoming the default option is the most potent competitive advantage but also the most dangerous anesthetic. When you are the default, user growth requires no effort from you; it comes automatically.

However, this growth can mask the fact that the product itself is aging. By the time you realize users are leaving, the exodus has often been ongoing for a long time.

Internet Explorer was the default browser, losing to Chrome. Nokia was the default mobile phone, losing to the iPhone.

Windows Media Player was the default player and lost to everyone. Even when these products were losing, their market share was still high, and brand awareness was still strong, but new users were no longer choosing them.

MetaMask is now in that same position. Legacy users are still there, the brand is still recognizable, but the growth has shifted elsewhere. Consensys's IPO plan ultimately aims to monetize the existing user base.

At a stage where brand value outweighs product value, selling off is indeed a rational choice.

On the day Finlay left, MetaMask had just launched an advanced permission feature called ERC-7715. He said he looks forward to experiencing it as an ordinary user in the future.

For a product creator to become an ordinary user of the product is perhaps the most modest and quiet farewell in the crypto industry.

But for MetaMask, how many ordinary users will still click on that little fox every day next year? Are you still using it?