Joseph Lubin hints at MetaMask potentially having its own token

The head of ConsenSys and co-founder of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Joseph Lubin, hinted that MetaMask, the non-custodial wallet owned by his company, could have its own token.

Andrew, ConsenSys has thousands of tokens on our balance sheet. ConsenSys is vigorously controlled by its employees, which includes me. And we are driving towards decentralization of several of our projects. Wen $MASK? Stay tuned. Wen objective journalism, ser?

— Joseph Lubin (@ethereumJoseph) November 8, 2021

Coindesk journalist Andrew Thurman suggested that MetaMask would never issue its own digital asset, because investment bank JPMorgan, which owns at least 10% of ConsenSys, does not want to have tokens on its balance sheet.

In response, Lubin wrote:

“Andrew, ConsenSys has thousands of tokens on our balance sheet. ConsenSys is tightly controlled by its employees, which includes me. And we are moving toward decentralization of several of our projects. When $MASK? Stay tuned. Wen objective journalism, sir?”

Thurman explained his position by noting that JPMorgan is unlikely to want to give up its stake in the company or dilute it.

“Traditionally, when a project raises funds from investors, it does so either directly through tokens, or via equity, which subsequently converts into tokens. If MetaMask tokenizes and decentralizes, JPMorgan probably wants to obtain its share. How they would obtain it seems to be a difficult question,” he wrote.

MetaMask charges 0.875% on each transaction made through its plugin. This is considerably higher than the fees charged by other decentralised platforms such as SushiSwap and Curve. Given that the wallet is actively used by more than 10 million people, it has become a fairly lucrative business.

Momir Amidzic, a senior adviser at venture firm IOSG, used the service Dune Analytics to calculate ConsenSys’s fee income from MetaMask. In 2021 alone, the wallet generated more than $195.5 million for the company.

As reported by the Financial Times, following the latest funding round, the value of ConsenSys could reach $3 billion.

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