- Ethereum Foundation begins solo staking 2,106 ETH with a target of 70,000 ETH to generate native rewards for future initiatives
- The organization plans to cut annual spending from 15% to 5% of its treasury by 2030 and will manage ETH sales using an Opex Buffer system
- Vitalik Buterin has sold ETH to support funding while ETH’s price has fallen sharply and users on Myriad expect further downside
The ethereum foundation has begun a new phase in its treasury management, moving a portion of its holdings into staking while also signaling tighter spending plans for the coming years. The organization’s latest on-chain activity and updated financial approach arrive during a period of price pressure for ETH and follow recent personal asset sales by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin aimed at supporting the network’s development.
Ethereum Foundation launches large-scale solo staking program
The Ethereum Foundation has started staking 2,106 ETH, worth about $3.8 million, as part of a broader strategy for its reserves that it first set out in June of last year. The plan envisions gradually increasing the amount staked to roughly 70,000 ETH, or about $127 million, using solo staking rather than third-party services. Rewards from this staking activity, paid in native ETH, are intended to flow back to the organization and support future work across the ecosystem.
In a blog post, the Foundation said that by joining network consensus through solo staking, it will earn yield in ETH that can help fund its role in guiding the protocol’s evolution. The organization emphasized that it is choosing to rely on Ethereum’s own economic mechanisms, exposing itself to the same frictions, risks, and operational complexities that other stakers face. According to the post, the Foundation views this as an opportunity to model transparent practices and careful validator management for the wider community.
This staking initiative is one component of a larger treasury policy designed to balance long-term sustainability with continued funding for research, development, and grants. The decision to stake directly rather than through intermediaries positions the Foundation as both a major economic actor in the protocol and a participant subject to its technical and financial constraints.
Treasury strategy, ETH sales, and “mild austerity”
The new staking activity coincides with a period of reshaped spending plans and more detailed disclosure from the ethereum foundation about how it handles its treasury. The organization has described the current phase as one of “mild austerity,” meaning a set of stricter economic policies intended to curb outlays over time. Under this framework, annual spending is scheduled to fall from 15% of the treasury to 5% by 2030.
Vitalik Buterin has aligned his own actions with this financial reset. In recent days, he sold as much as $6.1 million worth of ETH and has previously indicated that he would sell around $44.7 million of the asset to help support the Foundation during this period. These moves are framed as part of a broader attempt to ensure that resources remain available for the network’s long-term needs, even as the organization reins in its yearly expenditures.
The ethereum foundation has faced criticism in the past for converting portions of its ETH holdings to other assets. Responding to that scrutiny, it used last year’s treasury policy update to offer greater clarity on how and when it expects to sell ETH. The Foundation said it will periodically measure how far its fiat-denominated holdings deviate from a target “Opex Buffer” and then determine how much ETH, if any, should be sold over the following three months. The Opex Buffer represents the number of years of operating runway stored in the treasury, and this metric now serves as a central guide for its asset allocation decisions.
Under the updated approach, ETH sales are not expected to be ad hoc. Instead, they will be informed by this structured review process, which is meant to align operational spending, cash reserves, and on-chain holdings. Alongside the growing staking program, this creates a dual-track strategy: generating yield in ETH while selectively selling when needed to maintain a specific runway in fiat terms.
Leadership changes and market pressures around ETH
The ethereum foundation’s financial recalibration and staking strategy have developed against a backdrop of internal leadership changes and a weakening ETH market. Earlier this month, Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak stepped down from his role in the organization’s top executive team. Bastian Aue has been appointed as interim Co-Executive Director, taking over Stańczak’s responsibilities while the Foundation navigates this transition.
At the same time, ETH, the Foundation’s principal asset, has been under notable short-term and medium-term pressure. The coin has fallen more than 2% over the past 24 hours and is down nearly 37% across the last 30 days, recently trading around $1,852. This drawdown has direct implications for the value of the Foundation’s holdings, its staking yields in dollar terms, and the scale of any ETH conversions required to maintain its operating buffer.
Market participants are signaling expectations of further downside. On Myriad, a prediction platform operated by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan, traders currently assign close to a 75% probability that ETH will touch $1,500 before it can recover to $3,000. Such sentiment suggests that the Foundation’s choice to expand staking and implement a more conservative spending path is taking place during a period of heightened uncertainty about future price movements.
Despite these conditions, the staking rollout continues, reinforcing the Foundation’s stated intent to rely on Ethereum’s core economic architecture and to subject its own operations to the same dynamics faced by the broader network. The combination of reduced spending, structured ETH sales based on the Opex Buffer, and direct validator participation reflects an attempt to adjust to market realities while maintaining funding for protocol stewardship.
Conclusion
The ethereum foundation’s decision to begin staking thousands of ETH, with a target of about 70,000 ETH over time, marks a significant evolution in how it manages its treasury. Coupled with a planned drop in annual spending from 15% to 5% of reserves by 2030 and clearer rules around ETH sales tied to its Opex Buffer, the organization is reshaping its financial posture amid a period of falling prices and cautious market expectations. With leadership changes at the executive level and Vitalik Buterin’s recent personal ETH sales to bolster Foundation resources, the network’s main steward is moving to align its own financial behavior more closely with the economic and technical realities of the protocol it oversees.
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