DeFi spent a decade building the financial primitives that institutional finance has been watching closely: lending protocols, AMMs, collateral management, yield mechanics.
At the same time, institutional finance was building the infrastructure DeFi lacked - privacy, compliance, settlement at scale - on rails that most DeFi developers couldn't reach.
Zenith is the connection between them. As Canton's official EVM (and soon SVM) execution layer, Zenith gives every DeFi protocol built on Ethereum direct atomic composability with Canton's institutional ecosystem. In a single transaction, a Canton-native asset can move to Zenith, be used as collateral in a lending protocol, generate yield, swap to another asset, and settle back on @CantonNetwork, all within the same consensus mechanism, with no bridge risk and no window of exposure between steps.
@GArentoft breaks down what that looks like from the inside in EDAS Payments Day in Miami.
Zth.
Zenith is in Stockholm this week for the Nordic Blockchain Conference by @nordicblock.
Our Head of Ecosystem @GArentoft is joining a fireside on Wednesday at 13:55 UTC, The Quiet Institutional Shift: When Wall Street Goes On-Chain. A conversation about the institutional move toward on-chain infrastructure that's been building quietly for years and is now becoming impossible to ignore.
The conversation is happening tomorrow, don't miss it: https://t.co/bKLXHxWwCX
Zth.
Ethereum's developer ecosystem and Canton's institutional infrastructure, now on the same execution layer.
@ZenithFdn's @GArentoft discusses what that convergence looks like from the inside with @DisenceOfficial.
Zenith team is heading to @consensus2026 in Miami next week.
@GArentoft, our Head of Ecosystem, is speaking at EDAS Payments Day on May 5, joining @CantonFdn, @BitwavePlatform, @AleoHQ , @vouch_group and @Anchorage on a panel about the new financial infrastructure being built around on-chain payments, stablecoins, and smart contracts.
EDAS is known for keeping the conversation high-signal and practitioner-focused. This edition is no different, senior leaders from across payments, treasury, and compliance discussing what's actually working for institutional B2B stablecoin payments right now.
Gustav will also be around for the full Consensus conference, reach out if you want to connect in Miami.
Zth.
Zenith is expanding and we're hiring two people to grow with us.
> Business Development Associate: shape Zenith's launch by managing inbound client relationships, qualifying partnerships, and building the workflows that keep everything moving. You're organized, relationship-driven, and fluent in both Web3 and institutional finance conversations.
https://t.co/xEg65zmUXO
> Head of Security (Engineering): own security end-to-end across our full stack. This is a deeply technical role: threat modeling, vulnerability research, incident response, secure architecture from blockchain protocol layer to cloud infrastructure.
https://t.co/tnMf9WkkzC
If you want to work at the forefront of where DeFi meets institutional finance with an ambitious team playing the long game, we'd love to hear from you.
Zth.
Zenith Team is growing!
Two people joined Zenith lately worth knowing about ↓
Gustav Arentoft (@GArentoft) | Head of Ecosystem
8+ years in DeFi. BD Lead at MakerDAO from 2018-2021, closed SocGen first tier 1 bank integrated into DeFi. Head of Product for @1inch’s institutional product. Founder of @StableLab, running governance for major L1/L2s, and DeFi protocols with a 30-person team.
At Zenith, he leads ecosystem, builder relationships, and institutional partnerships.
Angelo Laub (@angelol) | Engineering Lead
20+ years building production systems across cryptography, blockchain, and AI infrastructure. Lead smart contract engineer for Alien Worlds (100k+ DAU). Creator of Tunnelblick, a widely used macOS OpenVPN client.
At Zenith, he owns engineering execution across the multi-VM stack heading into mainnet.
The right people, at the right time. Q3 mainnet is approaching, with 31,800+ Ethereum developers about to get direct access to Canton's institutional rails for the first time. The team is evolving to meet that moment.
We’re also hiring: https://t.co/1bZnRJlIMD
Welcome Gustav and Angelo!
Zth.
After 5 years our journey with @StableLab comes to an end. Its been an incredible experience as a first time founder building for so long with one of my best friends and the perfect Co-Founder @DooWanNam. A big thanks to everyone who worked alongside us, to our investors who believed in us, and our partners for allowing us to contribute to some of the best teams in the space.
Not sure whats next, but I'll take the first proper vacation in five years.
Today we’ve made the difficult decision to wind down StableLab.
StableLab (originally StableNode) launched in 2021 because we wanted to define the newly emerging DAO space. Back then, governance was still in its infancy. Protocols launched tokens, formed DAOs, and hoped the community would figure out how to govern themselves. The system was informal and chaotic. Governance work was not seen as work. We thought this was broken and so we built a team.
We hired delegates and governance experts to help push forward responsible DAO design. People who understood how DAOs actually work. We were one of the first professional governance service firms in the space.
Some things we achieved and are proud of:
‐ Worked with the biggest and most respected ecosystems, including: Aave, Uniswap, Compound, Sky (MakerDAO), Euler, Optimism, Arbitrum, 1inch.
‐ 4,000+ governance votes cast
‐ Over $1B in governance decisions influenced
‐ Helped establish that delegate work should be paid. This used to be controversial.
‐ Transformed ourself from a services firm to a product-first startup
Over these five years we’ve seen the DAO space mature and evolve. We built governance frameworks that protocols still use today and contributed to higher standards around proposal quality, voting transparency, and delegate accountability. We showed up to hundreds of community calls, wrote thousands of insightful forum posts and comments.
To our partners and clients, we are incredibly grateful for the collaboration and time we shared together pushing the space forward. The relationships and connections meant more than anything.
To the StableLab team, past and present, we want to thank you for being part of our story and for having joined us on our mission. So many talented individuals have left their mark on our company’s history, something we deeply appreciate. We have begun the process of helping each and every one of our team members find their next home.
We still believe in governance and DAOs. There's so much room left to explore as institutional adoption accelerates, privacy protocols mature, and new coordination mechanisms emerge.
Five years ago, we set out to prove that DAO governance matters and could be professionalized. We proved it. Not alone, but alongside the protocols and people who believed the same thing.
Thank you for everything. See you onchain ❤️
Gustav, Doo, and the StableLab team
NEW STABLEPOD AVAILABLE NOW 🎧
We sit down with @crocdundalk, Founder of Matariki Labs and contributor to @keel_fi — Solana’s onchain capital allocator — to unpack:
— How Keel routes ~$2.5B of stablecoin liquidity across Solana DeFi
— @SkyEcosystem’s Agent/Star model and Keel’s risk guardrails
— USDS + Keel and the path to institutional‑scale Solana markets
Plus: @solana’s historic DeFi gaps and what success looks like 12–24 months out for Keel.
Links in the next tweet 👇
If you are looking for a hotel room during @EFDevcon, please read this.
Unfortunately, one of the @StableLab members couldn’t join us. So if you need one, please DM me, or if you already know my Telegram, feel free to message me there.
Unfortunately, we only have one room, so we will have to prioritize our partners as well as timing.
Thank you.
hello hello here’s where to find me at devconnect 💁🏿♀️
+ GovDay, Sat Nov 15 @ 3:30pm i’m on a panel talking about the Delegate Accelerator program i shepherded for @Scroll_ZKP as a case study in capacity building for DAOs https://t.co/iO0tp0cyEN
some exciting alpha here
Last week, the @StableLab team gathered in Bodrum, Turkey for our annual offsite, a week of strategy, collaboration, and good energy.
It was a great opportunity to connect beyond work, exchange ideas in person, and strengthen the relationships that make everything move forward.
Grateful for the experience, the people, and the vision we’re building toward!
1/ Reintroducing Forse, the intelligence layer fueling web3 growth.
One source of truth for what growth works. An execution layer to act on it. Built for and by web3 operators.
Forse Insights is live. Forse Agents is in private beta.
Last month our CTO @Totenfluch presented at @tbc_munich on the three levers of ecosystem growth: airdrops, grants, and liquid incentives—plus the metrics to evaluate and optimize each. He highlighted how our @Forseapp product can effectively enhance these strategies.
NEXT WEEK IN SINGAPORE 🇸🇬
Our CEO @GArentoft and COO @DooWanNam will be in attendance for @token2049.
Interested in growth, incentives, or just want to say hi? Reach out!