Mike Kriak CXO story — Source: CoinGape Some business decisions come at a crucial time. But when one of crypto’s longest-standing companies decides to reshape itself, the person leading that
Some business decisions come at a crucial time. But when one of crypto’s longest-standing companies decides to reshape itself, the person leading that transition becomes just as important as the decision itself.
On September 9, 2026, Consensys announced plans to split its operations into two independently operated companies. MetaMask would continue as a consumer-focused financial platform under Joe Lubin. Meanwhile a newly formed Consensys would concentrate on Ethereum protocols and institutional blockchain infrastructure.
The announcement marked a significant shift for a company that has been part of Ethereum’s development since its early days. Founded by Lubin in 2014, Consensys has spent more than a decade building tools and infrastructure across the Ethereum ecosystem.
At the centre of this transition is Mike Kriak, an executive who has spent nearly nine years working alongside Lubin. Previously CEO of Consensys Mesh, Kriak has now taken charge of the institutional infrastructure business. Lubin remains Executive Chairman of Consensys, while David Cunningham serves as President.
I had been trying to get Kriak’s perspective for nearly a month. Between the demands of a new CEO role and Consensys’ ongoing transition, finding time for the conversation was not easy. When his responses finally arrived, I wanted to look beyond the restructuring announcement and understand the person now tasked with leading the company into its next phase.
Coming from his most recent role as COO and CFO of Mashable, and Consensys Mesh, Mike says, “What changes as CEO is that I am no longer allocating across many bets; I am accountable for one. Consensys now has a single mission: to be the infrastructure regulated financial institutions rely on.”.
He describes his new job as execution: shipping product, earning the trust of banks, asset managers and market infrastructures, and moving them from pilots to production.
Mike is very clear about his current priorities in the new role. “I will hold us to a narrower and harder definition of progress. Not announcements or experiments, but institutions running live markets on our infrastructure, and separate networks settling with each other. I will make sure we are building financial market infrastructure, not a consumer brand: credibly neutral, open, and designed to strengthen the institutions that use it”, the new CEO adds.
Kriak’s journey to the CEO position has not followed a conventional crypto executive path.
Before entering the Ethereum ecosystem, he held senior operating roles, including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Mashable. He joined Consensys in 2018, when the company was still operating as a venture production studio, developing several projects around Ethereum.
In January 2023, he became CEO of Consensys Mesh, a position he held until the September 2026 restructuring.
The experience, he says, gave him a different perspective on building blockchain businesses. “At Mesh, I worked across a portfolio of companies at very different stages, sat with founders through strong markets and hard ones, and had to decide where capital and attention would create the most value. That builds discipline. You learn to separate a compelling story from a durable business, and to ask early what has to be true for a company to still matter in ten years,” he says.
Talking with Mike and what stands out most is how often Kriak returns to one influence: Joe Lubin. Having worked alongside him since 2018, Kriak says nearly nine years of watching Lubin build, adapt and reorganise Consensys have shaped the way he thinks about leadership.
But he does not point to one particular incident as the defining moment of their working relationship. Instead, he recalls a consistent approach that shaped his understanding of leadership.
“What has shaped me most is not a single moment but a pattern I have watched Joe repeat for nearly nine years: hold the long-term conviction fixed, and be willing to change the structure around it,” Kriak said.
He recalls Consensys’ earlier days as a venture production studio, when several of its projects were being developed years ahead of the markets they were intended to serve.
In 2020, the company separated its software business from its venture operations, with the latter continuing as Consensys Mesh. The September 2026 restructuring represents another major organisational shift.
For Kriak, one of the biggest lessons from Lubin was the importance of patience in an industry driven by market cycles.
“This industry moves in cycles, and Joe has always kept investing in protocols, client software and standards through the quiet periods, when it would have been easier to chase whatever was popular. That patience is a large part of why Besu and Teku exist today, and why institutions take us seriously.”
The second lesson Kriak reveals was knowing when an existing structure had served its purpose and when the business needed a different approach.
“Building something that matters for decades means recognising when one structure has done its job and the next stage needs a different one,” Kriak added.
That thinking now provides the foundation for his own leadership at Consensys.
So when I think about building Consensys, I think about it the way working with Joe taught me to: start from the principle, stay neutral and open, and let the organisation evolve around the work.
The restructuring comes as the company’s consumer and institutional businesses have developed into two distinct opportunities.
MetaMask celebrated its 10th anniversary in July 2026, reporting more than 100 million downloads and availability across approximately 190 countries. What began as an Ethereum browser wallet has grown into a broader consumer financial platform.
However, Kriak says the institutional opportunity requires a different business focus and “is the reason for separation of the two”.
“Each market needs its own operating model, its own leadership and its own investment strategy, and the separation gives both companies that focus.
For Consensys, it means we are {now} entirely dedicated to regulated financial institutions. We remain a protocols company: we keep building and maintaining Besu, Teku and Linea, and we stay an Ethereum ecosystem steward. What changes is that we take that expertise up the stack, to help institutions connect the ledgers they have built and run markets around the clock.”
Now, Kriak wants the company to be recognised as financial market infrastructure rather than simply an Ethereum software developer.
“I want Consensys to be seen as financial market infrastructure: credibly neutral infrastructure that lays the foundations the world’s financial institutions will rely on,” he said.
The idea, he explains, is to help banks and financial institutions connect their existing blockchain networks without forcing them to surrender control of their own infrastructure. This comes as banks like Standard Chartered, HSBC make big moves in crypto.
Its approach is built around a straightforward principle. “We build the open infrastructure that lets institutional networks work as one 24/7 market, while each institution stays in control of its ledger, its data and its sovereignty. Our tagline sums it up: own your ledger, share the transaction, stay sovereign,” Kriak says.
Kriak wants Consensys to provide the infrastructure that makes these transactions possible across independently operated ledgers.
Well seems his vision is already into execution. The company has already begun building partnerships around this opportunity. On October 8, 2026, Consensys announced a strategic partnership with UK-based ClearToken to support 24/7 settlement infrastructure for tokenized assets and cash.
Most recently. Consensys also introduced its Sovereign Network Interoperability technology stack on November 2, 2026. The offering would help connect financial networks. It will also support institutional use cases such as securities settlement, cross-currency payments, collateral mobility and fund servicing.
These developments reflect the direction Kriak wants the company to take. He says, “What we are not matters just as much. We are not a consumer product, not a single network, and not here to replace trusted institutions. We strengthen and extend their role as markets move to real time.”
For Kriak, the company’s growth will not be measured by the number of partnerships announced or blockchain pilots launched.
He wants to see financial institutions using Consensys technology to run live markets. He has outlined four milestones that will define the company’s progress.
The first is moving institutions from pilots to production. The second is enabling transactions across separate institutional ledgers, including delivery-versus-payment and payment-versus-payment settlement.
The third is bringing major market infrastructure providers, such as central securities depositories, clearing houses and central banks, into the ecosystem.
Kriak also wants to change how Consensys generates revenue. As a pragmatic CEO, he highlights the fourth one as building a ” A business that grows with use: revenue increasingly driven by the activity flowing through these networks, rather than by one-off projects.”
“Success for me is simple: becoming the partner that takes financial institutions into this new phase,” he said. “That means doing it in a regulated and safe way, with the performance and capabilities to make tokenization at scale a reality, and working with the largest financial institutions in the world.”
Thus, for the new CEO, the challenge is to combine the company’s decade-long experience in Ethereum infrastructure with the commercial discipline needed to serve some of the world’s largest financial institutions.
Joe Lubin’s long-term conviction in Ethereum remains at the heart of Consensys. But under Kriak, the company’s next chapter will be judged by how effectively it translates that conviction into working financial infrastructure.
Meet CEO Mike Kriak: Joseph Lubin’s Right Hand Now Leading the New Consensys originally appeared on CoinGape
