I just saw something worth pondering. MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay announced his departure last April, citing burnout and wanting to spend more time with his family. The decision itself isn’t surprising, but the timing is a bit delicate—right on the eve of Consensys preparing for an IPO.
Honestly, this founder has hardly given interviews over the past decade. He used to write code at Apple, and deep down he’s still an engineer; he’s not the kind of person who likes to build a public persona. When someone like that says they’re tired, it’s usually truly that—he’s genuinely exhausted. But the issue is that his departure happened just a few months after Consensys hired JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to serve as IPO advisors.
I’ve noticed a pattern: while MetaMask is still the most well-known product in the crypto world—that little orange fox everyone recognizes—its market position is quietly changing. According to on-chain data, Phantom’s annualized revenue is about $108 million, while MetaMask’s is only $46 million. And this is despite Phantom having launched five years later than MetaMask.
Why is this happening? Phantom got its start in the Solana ecosystem and rode the entire Solana story from collapse to explosive growth over the past few years. In 2024, Solana’s DEX trading volume surpassed Ethereum’s; by 2025, total on-chain application revenue reached $2.39 billion, up 46% year over year. Meanwhile, MetaMask didn’t natively support Solana until May 2025; before that, users had to install third-party plugins. It’s like trying to run a Chrome engine inside Internet Explorer—it’s clunky and awkward.
MetaMask’s problem isn’t a lack of technical capability; it’s an identity issue. It’s Ethereum’s direct line—Consensys’s founder is Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. Supporting Solana is expansion for Phantom, but for MetaMask it’s almost like a betrayal. By the time the Ethereum ecosystem’s growth slows down and cross-chain demand becomes genuinely urgent, the opportunity window has already shut.
What we’re looking at now is this: product competitiveness is declining, the founder has left, yet Consensys still needs to go public. Last October, they cut 20% of staff (about 160 people), and they’re bringing another round of layoffs in mid-year on the grounds of “improving profitability.” Employee sentiment is a mess. Still, Consensys is pushing forward with the IPO at this moment.
And then there’s that still-pending MASK token. In 2021, Lubin tweeted, “Wen $MASK?” After that, he kept talking about DAOs and incremental decentralization. By May 2025, when Finlay was asked when the token would be issued, his answer was “maybe.” For users, this is an appetite-whetting promise; for Consensys, it’s a card to play ahead of the IPO. If it’s released too early, it will dilute the valuation narrative; if it’s released too late, the community won’t have the patience.
My view is that MetaMask’s story is fundamentally about the “default option.” In the tech industry, becoming the default option is the strongest competitive advantage—but it’s also the most dangerous sedative. When you’re the default, user growth happens automatically, but that growth can mask the fact that the product itself is aging. Internet Explorer, Nokia, and Windows Media Player all lost to newer competitors—when they still had huge user bases and strong brands, new users had already moved elsewhere.
MetaMask is in that position now. It has an existing user base and a strong brand, but incremental growth is happening elsewhere. Consensys’s IPO plan, in essence, is about monetizing the existing user base. When brand value exceeds product value, selling really is the rational choice.
On the day Finlay left, MetaMask had just released a new feature: ERC-7715. He said he’s looking forward to experiencing it as an ordinary user. The product’s creator becoming an ordinary user might be the calmest farewell in crypto history. But the question is: next year, how many ordinary users will still be opening that little fox every day?
