The Ethereum Foundation said it will allocate 50,000 Ether worth around $165 million to support Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote to X on Jan. 20 that the nonprofit Foundation would undergo organizational changes to more actively support app builders and provide more transparency to the community.
The funds will be secured in a 3-of-5 multisig wallet on Safe, which has already executed a test transaction on lending protocol Aave, the Ethereum Foundation’s Hsiao-Wei Wang said in a Jan. 20 X post.
However, it could take a few days to set the wallet up, Wang noted.
Reaping the rewards from the Ethereum network’s DeFi ecosystem could expand the foundation’s treasury, which has fallen 56% from 617,000 Ether (ETH) in January 2020 to 269,000 Ether — worth around $894 million, Arkham Intelligence data shows.
The promised 50,000 Ether represents 18.5% of the Ethereum Foundation’s total holdings.
Infinix founder Kain Warwick has been one of the outspoken critics of the Foundation, accusing it of lacking interest in DeFi — while others haven’t been pleased with the Ether sell pressure created by the foundation to cover salaries and host events.
Prior to Wang’s announcement, Ethereum core developer Eric Conner said the foundation’s staking rewards could cover most, if not all, of its internal budget while easing some of the selling pressure that has upset the community.
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Some in the Ethereum community have attributed the foundation’s perceived lack of engagement and leadership to Ether’s poor price performance relative to Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) over the past few months — noting that advocates for those networks have strongly engaged with regulators.
Buterin, however, stressed the nonprofit isn’t looking to execute an “ideological” pivot or start lobbying regulators as part of an effort to be credibly neutral.
Buterin received support from CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju, praising him and the foundation for prioritizing “creating value over making money” at a time when celebrities and now incoming presidents are making money from memecoin launches.
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