A VP at Citibank who doesn't want to work on AI is not a good executive chairman for the Ethereum Foundation.
Written by: BUBBLE
Recently, Virtuals Protocol released a one-and-a-half-minute video in which the image represented by Luna rushed to Ethereum, including the sculpture of Vitalik and the onlookers of Aixbt, another well-known image of Virtual. The video was then reposted on Ethereum's official account, and the two sides announced the official start of the partnership. The Ethereum project I.R.I.S, which debuted on Genesis Launches, is powered by AuditAgent, an AI-powered smart contract analysis tool developed by Nethermind, a company founded by Tomasz K. Stańczak, the current co-CEO of the Ethereum Foundation.
What is I.R.I.S? Who is Tomasz K. Stańczak? What kind of impact could this have on Ethereum?
What is I.R.I.S?
I.R.I.S. (full name Integrity & Risk Intelligence Scanner) is powered by AuditAgent, Nethermind's experimental automated smart contract security platform, natively deployed on the X platform, and designed for Web3 builders. She proactively scans developers' social media conversations and code, provides actionable security insights in real time, and uncovers potential risks and emerging requirements to help developers pre-screen for audits, learn security, and identify business opportunities in the environments they use most.
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Unlike traditional static tools, I.R.I.S. is built around an AI-driven agent framework, combined with Nethermind Security's expertise and real-world audit data, to provide three core capabilities: AI-enhanced smart contract scanning, actionable vulnerability reporting and remediation recommendations, and real-time education on security best practices. Not a replacement for manual audits, but as an intelligent assistant in the day-to-day security process, it is able to complete basic scans in minutes, advanced analysis in 30-40 minutes, and in-depth research in 1.5 to 3 hours, greatly improving development efficiency and product safety.
As an intelligent and evolving "security assistant", I.R.I.S.'s strengths come from her understanding of real-world attack cases and audit patterns, contextual awareness of code and social context, and access to Nethermind's security research data streams, allowing her to keep up with the latest threats and provide high signal-to-noise vulnerability identification. Its unique moat lies in its combination of a proprietary vulnerability detection framework, a multi-model AI orchestration system, and native integration with social platforms, resulting in a clear lead in speed, accuracy, and usability.
50% of the team's share will be airdropped to the community, linearly released to the Ethereum community over 2 years, while the remaining 37.5% will be publicly sold during the Genesis Launch, and 12.5% will be allocated to Virtual and liquidity for Ethereum trading pairs.
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It's worth noting that neither Nethermind nor members of the AuditAgent team have publicly stated that the project is related to the team itself, but Vader, the founder of Virtuals Protocol's core project, VaderAI, said that "close sources with Nethermind's executive team have told me that they've been working on this agent for some time," while Wee, co-founder of Virtuals Protocol Kee's "everythingempt0" even bluntly stated that IRIS is jointly published by Virtuals and nethermind.
Vader believes that it may be due to Tomasz K. Stańczak's "@tkstanczak" status at the Ethereum Foundation, and he is unsure if he will risk his reputation on the AI Agent project. But in any case, it can be confirmed that IRIS has symbolic significance for both parties as the first Ethereum project to list Virtuals.
From Dropout to EF Executive Director
Tomasz attended Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) from 2004–2009 and earned a master's degree in information technology. At the same time, he studied business management at the Poznan University of Economics from 2005–2010, which is not uncommon in the Polish education system to study both universities. But in his last year at the Poznan University of Economics, he hardly attended classes and, of course, did not participate in his dissertation.
In fact, in the last year before graduating from the University of Economics in Poznań, Tomasz joined Itelligence (now known as NTT), a global IT service and consulting company headquartered in Bielefeld, Germany, established in 1989. At that time, Tomasz's job was to lead a small team to expand the application of the underwriting platform MRET for MunichRe (a German insurance company) to calculate premiums for large civil engineering projects. This was one of MunichRe's most important IT projects and possibly the reason why he had almost no time to complete his studies in his final year at the University of Poznań due to his busy work schedule.
After working at Itelligence for a year and a half, Tomasz chose to join CME Group "Chicago Mercantile Exchange" to be responsible for the technical development of the CME Direct trading platform. Just 6 months later, he switched jobs again to join Citibank. In the following 5 years, Tomasz was responsible for one team project after another, rising from Technical Director to VP.
In 2017, a year after leaving Citi, he founded Nethermind, a technology, R&D, and consulting services team for blockchain and DeFi businesses.
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Tomasz has built an efficient talent acquisition and training program at Nethermind, creating a high-functioning team. Not only have they developed high-performance Ethereum execution clients, but they have also supported tools such as Sedge (a one-click deployment tool) and Warp (a Solidity to Cairo transpiler), as well as Layer 2 solutions such as Juno for Starknet, while the Nethermind team has been deeply involved in key upgrades such as The Merge, Shapella, Dencun, and Pectra.
Since 2017, Tomasz has been actively involved in the Ethereum community, participating in MEV and PBS research as an initial team member of Flashbots, and then joining the board of directors of Ethereum Layer2 StarkNet, serving as CEO of institutional KYC provider Twinstake, while Nethermind's team has gradually expanded to more than 330 members, deeply involved in the community, and has repeatedly appeared in public "EthCC, Devcon." , X, technical articles" to express his views on the development of the Ethereum community, which makes him have a good appeal in the community.
Since the Trump administration took office, the blockchain model has been very different from before, and the team led by Vitalik advocates the "de-governmentization" of Ethereum, advocates "cypherpunk", and advocates cooperation with traditional finance and enterprises to promote "compliance" to attract capital and promote mainstream adoption Joseph Lubin. At the same time, Tomasz, who has a lot of work experience and contacts in traditional finance, and is very tech-savvy, seems to be the perfect choice.
On March 17, 2025, Tomasz K. Stańczak officially took office as the Co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, leading alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang.
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What does the collaboration with Virtuals mean for Ethereum?
On April 14, 2025, Tomasz, as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, shared Ethereum's simplified roadmap on social media X, clearly incorporating AI integration into a long-term goal. He has also mentioned several times in his speeches and in X that AI can serve as a long-term attraction for thinkers and creative talents.
On March 12, 2025, Tomasz shared his vision for the future of Ethereum + AI at the Stanford AI Blockchain Summit, when he had just been appointed as Ethereum's co-CEO, but had not yet taken office.
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Tomasz discussed AI + Blockchain at the Stanford Blockchain AI Summit
In his speech, he talked about the usefulness of multi-agent AI, the evolution of blockchain governance, how to use AI to achieve smarter collective decision-making, Ethereum-related applications, and how the collective intelligence of AI will enhance the collective decision-making ability of the blockchain network through data analysis and prediction models, reduce human intervention, and improve the scalability of decentralized systems.
Unlike Solana and Base, there are even fewer projects that build AI products on Ethereum. That's probably why Tomasz K. Stańczak co-founded Lantern Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, on May 7, 2025 with Gökhan and the Nethermind team. Lantern Capital is focused on supporting founders in developing next-generation applications and experiences that enable AI systems to effectively interact with blockchain technology.
Lantern Capital's focus is on exploring how AI can enable reliable collaboration on the blockchain, such as supporting the operation of AI agents through the Ethereum network. and improving the Agent Experience (AX) to optimize the user experience of AI agents in a blockchain environment. All while ensuring that the underlying blockchain infrastructure can reliably support dynamic AI use cases. Tomasz sees Ethereum at the heart of this vision, emphasizing that the combination of AI and blockchain can create new decentralized use cases, such as autonomous machines and smart contracts working together.
Despite this, building a complete AI ecosystem from scratch is too long and costly. By connecting to the Virtuals protocol, Ethereum can directly introduce a mature token economic system, covering core functions such as the creation of AI agents, points mechanism, transactions and co-ownership, bringing new revenue models and interaction opportunities to users and developers.
The tokenization of Agent not only realizes revenue sharing, incentivizes more users to participate in and build an emerging decentralized application ecosystem, but also feeds back the entire Ethereum network through actual economic returns. With Virtuals, AI Agent has become more composable and profitable on Ethereum, significantly expanding the innovation boundaries of DeFi, blockchain games, and next-generation DApps, further driving both user engagement and developer activity.
Can the high liquidity and institutional anti-risk system of Ethereum, combined with the currently strong ecosystem of Virtuals, enable AI applications to become the new narrative for the next stage of Ethereum?
The content is for reference only, not a solicitation or offer. No investment, tax, or legal advice provided. See Disclaimer for more risks disclosure.
Virtuals log in Ethereum, EF executive director is going to do AI now.
Written by: BUBBLE
Recently, Virtuals Protocol released a one-and-a-half-minute video in which the image represented by Luna rushed to Ethereum, including the sculpture of Vitalik and the onlookers of Aixbt, another well-known image of Virtual. The video was then reposted on Ethereum's official account, and the two sides announced the official start of the partnership. The Ethereum project I.R.I.S, which debuted on Genesis Launches, is powered by AuditAgent, an AI-powered smart contract analysis tool developed by Nethermind, a company founded by Tomasz K. Stańczak, the current co-CEO of the Ethereum Foundation.
What is I.R.I.S? Who is Tomasz K. Stańczak? What kind of impact could this have on Ethereum?
What is I.R.I.S?
I.R.I.S. (full name Integrity & Risk Intelligence Scanner) is powered by AuditAgent, Nethermind's experimental automated smart contract security platform, natively deployed on the X platform, and designed for Web3 builders. She proactively scans developers' social media conversations and code, provides actionable security insights in real time, and uncovers potential risks and emerging requirements to help developers pre-screen for audits, learn security, and identify business opportunities in the environments they use most.
!
Unlike traditional static tools, I.R.I.S. is built around an AI-driven agent framework, combined with Nethermind Security's expertise and real-world audit data, to provide three core capabilities: AI-enhanced smart contract scanning, actionable vulnerability reporting and remediation recommendations, and real-time education on security best practices. Not a replacement for manual audits, but as an intelligent assistant in the day-to-day security process, it is able to complete basic scans in minutes, advanced analysis in 30-40 minutes, and in-depth research in 1.5 to 3 hours, greatly improving development efficiency and product safety.
As an intelligent and evolving "security assistant", I.R.I.S.'s strengths come from her understanding of real-world attack cases and audit patterns, contextual awareness of code and social context, and access to Nethermind's security research data streams, allowing her to keep up with the latest threats and provide high signal-to-noise vulnerability identification. Its unique moat lies in its combination of a proprietary vulnerability detection framework, a multi-model AI orchestration system, and native integration with social platforms, resulting in a clear lead in speed, accuracy, and usability.
50% of the team's share will be airdropped to the community, linearly released to the Ethereum community over 2 years, while the remaining 37.5% will be publicly sold during the Genesis Launch, and 12.5% will be allocated to Virtual and liquidity for Ethereum trading pairs.
!
It's worth noting that neither Nethermind nor members of the AuditAgent team have publicly stated that the project is related to the team itself, but Vader, the founder of Virtuals Protocol's core project, VaderAI, said that "close sources with Nethermind's executive team have told me that they've been working on this agent for some time," while Wee, co-founder of Virtuals Protocol Kee's "everythingempt0" even bluntly stated that IRIS is jointly published by Virtuals and nethermind.
Vader believes that it may be due to Tomasz K. Stańczak's "@tkstanczak" status at the Ethereum Foundation, and he is unsure if he will risk his reputation on the AI Agent project. But in any case, it can be confirmed that IRIS has symbolic significance for both parties as the first Ethereum project to list Virtuals.
From Dropout to EF Executive Director
Tomasz attended Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) from 2004–2009 and earned a master's degree in information technology. At the same time, he studied business management at the Poznan University of Economics from 2005–2010, which is not uncommon in the Polish education system to study both universities. But in his last year at the Poznan University of Economics, he hardly attended classes and, of course, did not participate in his dissertation.
In fact, in the last year before graduating from the University of Economics in Poznań, Tomasz joined Itelligence (now known as NTT), a global IT service and consulting company headquartered in Bielefeld, Germany, established in 1989. At that time, Tomasz's job was to lead a small team to expand the application of the underwriting platform MRET for MunichRe (a German insurance company) to calculate premiums for large civil engineering projects. This was one of MunichRe's most important IT projects and possibly the reason why he had almost no time to complete his studies in his final year at the University of Poznań due to his busy work schedule.
After working at Itelligence for a year and a half, Tomasz chose to join CME Group "Chicago Mercantile Exchange" to be responsible for the technical development of the CME Direct trading platform. Just 6 months later, he switched jobs again to join Citibank. In the following 5 years, Tomasz was responsible for one team project after another, rising from Technical Director to VP.
In 2017, a year after leaving Citi, he founded Nethermind, a technology, R&D, and consulting services team for blockchain and DeFi businesses.
!
Tomasz has built an efficient talent acquisition and training program at Nethermind, creating a high-functioning team. Not only have they developed high-performance Ethereum execution clients, but they have also supported tools such as Sedge (a one-click deployment tool) and Warp (a Solidity to Cairo transpiler), as well as Layer 2 solutions such as Juno for Starknet, while the Nethermind team has been deeply involved in key upgrades such as The Merge, Shapella, Dencun, and Pectra.
Since 2017, Tomasz has been actively involved in the Ethereum community, participating in MEV and PBS research as an initial team member of Flashbots, and then joining the board of directors of Ethereum Layer2 StarkNet, serving as CEO of institutional KYC provider Twinstake, while Nethermind's team has gradually expanded to more than 330 members, deeply involved in the community, and has repeatedly appeared in public "EthCC, Devcon." , X, technical articles" to express his views on the development of the Ethereum community, which makes him have a good appeal in the community.
Since the Trump administration took office, the blockchain model has been very different from before, and the team led by Vitalik advocates the "de-governmentization" of Ethereum, advocates "cypherpunk", and advocates cooperation with traditional finance and enterprises to promote "compliance" to attract capital and promote mainstream adoption Joseph Lubin. At the same time, Tomasz, who has a lot of work experience and contacts in traditional finance, and is very tech-savvy, seems to be the perfect choice.
On March 17, 2025, Tomasz K. Stańczak officially took office as the Co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, leading alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang.
!
What does the collaboration with Virtuals mean for Ethereum?
On April 14, 2025, Tomasz, as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, shared Ethereum's simplified roadmap on social media X, clearly incorporating AI integration into a long-term goal. He has also mentioned several times in his speeches and in X that AI can serve as a long-term attraction for thinkers and creative talents.
On March 12, 2025, Tomasz shared his vision for the future of Ethereum + AI at the Stanford AI Blockchain Summit, when he had just been appointed as Ethereum's co-CEO, but had not yet taken office.
!
Tomasz discussed AI + Blockchain at the Stanford Blockchain AI Summit
In his speech, he talked about the usefulness of multi-agent AI, the evolution of blockchain governance, how to use AI to achieve smarter collective decision-making, Ethereum-related applications, and how the collective intelligence of AI will enhance the collective decision-making ability of the blockchain network through data analysis and prediction models, reduce human intervention, and improve the scalability of decentralized systems.
Unlike Solana and Base, there are even fewer projects that build AI products on Ethereum. That's probably why Tomasz K. Stańczak co-founded Lantern Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, on May 7, 2025 with Gökhan and the Nethermind team. Lantern Capital is focused on supporting founders in developing next-generation applications and experiences that enable AI systems to effectively interact with blockchain technology.
Lantern Capital's focus is on exploring how AI can enable reliable collaboration on the blockchain, such as supporting the operation of AI agents through the Ethereum network. and improving the Agent Experience (AX) to optimize the user experience of AI agents in a blockchain environment. All while ensuring that the underlying blockchain infrastructure can reliably support dynamic AI use cases. Tomasz sees Ethereum at the heart of this vision, emphasizing that the combination of AI and blockchain can create new decentralized use cases, such as autonomous machines and smart contracts working together.
Despite this, building a complete AI ecosystem from scratch is too long and costly. By connecting to the Virtuals protocol, Ethereum can directly introduce a mature token economic system, covering core functions such as the creation of AI agents, points mechanism, transactions and co-ownership, bringing new revenue models and interaction opportunities to users and developers.
The tokenization of Agent not only realizes revenue sharing, incentivizes more users to participate in and build an emerging decentralized application ecosystem, but also feeds back the entire Ethereum network through actual economic returns. With Virtuals, AI Agent has become more composable and profitable on Ethereum, significantly expanding the innovation boundaries of DeFi, blockchain games, and next-generation DApps, further driving both user engagement and developer activity.
Can the high liquidity and institutional anti-risk system of Ethereum, combined with the currently strong ecosystem of Virtuals, enable AI applications to become the new narrative for the next stage of Ethereum?