MetaMask left behind a little fox loaded into an IPO book

Original title: "MetaMask joined up and left behind a fox loaded into an IPO book."
Original by Curly, Deep tide TechFlow

The guy who built this little fox doesn't want to build it anymore。

On April 23, the co-founder of MetaMask, Dan Finlay, announced his official departure from Consensys, ending a decade of career. The reason for this is professional fatigue and the desire to spend more time with their families。

MetaMask, probably the most recognized product application in the encrypted world. The orange fox's logo, as long as it's encrypted. In 2016, Finlay and another co-founder, Aaron Davis, built this browser plugin inside Consensys to allow ordinary people to interact with the Ethers without running the whole node。

over the past 10 years, according to many third-party platforms, the global installed capacity has exceeded 100 million, with approximately 30 million live users per month, and the swap function has accumulated over $325 million in transaction revenue。

Turning over public information, Finlay has been almost absent from interviews for the past decade. It was written in apples. It was supposed to be an engineer in the bones。

It's usually true that such people are tired. It's just a little while he's gone. It's hard to think。

Just a few months ago, Connsys invited Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as IPO consultants, and according to Axios, the target was listed as soon as possible this year。

THE COMPANY ' S LAST ROUND OF FINANCING WAS AGAIN IN 2022, WHEN IT WAS VALUED AT $7 BILLION, AFTER WHICH IT EXPERIENCED AT LEAST TWO LAYOFFS. AND THE US$MASK TOKEN CAME OUT IN 2021, AND FIVE YEARS AGO IT DIDN'T REALLY MOVE。

It doesn't seem like there's any need for a wallet, and even worse, it's that little foxes don't seem so necessary for everyone。

It's the default fox, but it's not an option

The first step of the development document that used to be dApp is "Estab MetaMask first". It's the industry's default wallet, like the blue IE browser on the desktop 10 years ago。

The problem is that default values and preferences are no longer the same thing。

Phantom, a company that initially only made solana wallets, was expanded to the Ether and Bitcoin. In January 2025, 150 million dollars in round C, valued at 3 billion。

According to the data quoted on the chain, the annualized income of Phantom was approximately $108 million, compared to approximately $46 million in MetaMask. It's more than double, and Phantom is five years late than MetaMask。

In 2021, Phantom started his home in Solana and ate the whole process of Solana ecology from recovery to eruption. According to Helius, in 2024 Solana ' s DEX transactions exceeded Ethera ' s total income from application in 2025 amounted to $2.39 billion, an increase of 46 per cent over the same period. 725 million new wallets completed the first Solana transaction in 2025. When these users came in, Phantom was waiting at the door。

Where's MetaMask? It's not until May 2025. Before that, the user wanted to touch Solana through MetaMask, only to install a third-party plugin called Snaps, which was close to loading the Chrome kernel on the IE browser...

In the past five years, Solana has become one of the most traded chains from a chain that nearly died of a FTX storm. Phantom also followed the increase in valuation, with $150 million in C rounds of financing at the beginning of 2025, valued at $3 billion。

The author feels that MetaMask is slow, not because of a technical failure, but because of an identity problem. MetaMask is the founder of the parent company Consensys, the son of the Taifung。

Support for Solana this thing, for Phantom is expansion, for MetaMask is betrayal. The window period is long past when the growth of the Etherpo ecology has slowed down and has to cross the chain。

Of course, MetaMask is still the most compatible in the Etherwood ecology, and almost all the dApps on the EVM chain treat it as a default option test, and 30 million months of life is not fake。

However, this viscosity is not derived from product strength, but from migration costs. The cost of moving can only prevent older users from leaving and new users from not coming。

A man who only started playing in the chain in 2025 was no longer a MetaMask when he loaded his wallet。

Little fox to bet

Product's falling, people are leaving, but Consensys is doing IPO。

According to Axios, in October 2025, Connsys invited Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as IPO consultants, and the target was to be listed as soon as possible this year. If successful, it would be the first company to land in the United States of America in depth tied to the Etherak core infrastructure。

But in the same year, Connsys had at least two layoffs。

The reason given by CEO Joe Lubin for cutting down 20% of the employees in October 2024 was macroeconomic stress and regulatory uncertainty. In mid-2025, another round was reduced, and this time the term became "promoting profit."。

In the well-known overseas job-seeking community of Glassdor, employee evaluation is more difficult than redundancy itself。

It has been written that the company cuts at least two rounds per year, all of which are front-line contributors and never by management. It was also stated that the next round of layoffs would appear after sharing with the superiors their desire for promotion。

It is not known how much of these assessments are emotional and how much is true. However, a company ' s substantial lay-offs before it could sprint on the market and its staff morale fell to the bottom were itself a sign。

THEN IS THE STORY OF THE MASK TOKEN。

In 2021, Lubin tweeted "Wen $MASK?" and the community boiled. In 2022, he further explained that he was going to sign up with DAO to promote "the gradual decentrization". In May 2025, Finlay was interviewed by The Block, asked when the token came, and his answer becamemaybe。

For users, the MASK token is a carrot that hangs in front to keep you using, interacting, contributing data to MetaMask. For Consensys, the token is an IPO card that hasn't been played yet。

EARLY AND DILUTED VALUATION NARRATIVES AND LATE COMMUNITIES BECAME IMPATIENT. NOW THAT IT'S GONE, THE TOKEN HAS NOT BEEN SENT, IPO IS COMING。

The product competitiveness of MetaMask is declining and this trend is difficult to reverse in the short term. But MetaMask's brand is well known, and the orange fox is still the most recognized encrypted logo in the world。

Brand values and product values are declining at different rates, and the decline is slower。

For encryption companies, IPOs often sell not products but brands and narratives. "Etherport Infrastructure" "Web3 portal" "the world's largest self-custody wallet" -- these labels were still on the PPT show a few years ago. Lubin himself was created as a Taifung association, a person who brought his own halo in front of traditional investors。

So Consensys chooses to put MetaMask in the shell of a listed company to price secondary markets while the brand is still valuable, while the regulatory window is open, while Wall Street is still enthusiastic about encryption infrastructure。

Silence is not gold

Union Finlay left this thing, and the C.T. Circle was flat. There is nothing to say goodbye to the long screens, nothing like the "end of an era", and most people don't even care about the news。

The Metamask complex is not as hot as some KOL in Hong Kong, China。

This in itself illustrates a number of issues。

MetaMask is a rare case in the encryption industry. It has the biggest brand in the industryBut its founders have almost no personal brand。

In a business where the founder is the biggest marketing resource, two of MetaMask's founders chose to be invisible. The product speaks for them until the product stops。

The story of MetaMask is essentially a story of "default"。

In the technology industry, being a default option is the strongest competitive advantage and the most dangerous anaesthetic. When you're defaulting, user growth doesn't require you to do anything, it comes by itself。

But this growth conceals the fact that the product itself is ageing. When you discover that the user is losing, the loss often lasts for a long time。

IE is the default browser, lost to Chrome. Nokia's default phone lost to iPhone。

Windows Media Player is the default player that loses to everyone. When these products were lost, the market share was high and brand awareness was strong, but the new users were no longer selected。

MetaMask is now in this position. Stock users are still there, brands sound, but the increase has gone elsewhere. Consensys' IPO plan says exactly what to do with the stock。

Selling is indeed a rational choice at a time when brand value is higher than product value。

The day Finlay left, MetaMask just went online with an advanced access function called ERC-7715. He said he expected to experience it later as an ordinary user。

The creator of a product has become its ordinary user, and this is probably the easiest and quietest farewell in the encryption industry。

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

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