Ethereum Foundation Starts Staking Treasury Amid Vitalik Buterin's ETH Sales
TL;DR
The Ethereum Foundation has started staking 2,106 ETH ($3.8M) as part of its treasury operations, aiming to eventually stake 70,000 ETH ($127M) to generate native ETH yield. This move coincides with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's recent ETH sales to fund the Foundation during a period of 'mild austerity' with reduced spending targets.
Key Takeaways
- •The Ethereum Foundation began staking 2,106 ETH ($3.8M) and plans to stake up to 70,000 ETH ($127M) via solo staking to generate ETH-denominated yield for funding ecosystem initiatives.
- •Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has sold significant amounts of ETH (including $6.1M recently) to help fund the Foundation during its 'mild austerity' period with reduced spending targets.
- •The Foundation aims to reduce its annual spending from 15% to 5% of its treasury by 2030 while increasing transparency around ETH sales and staking operations.
- •ETH price has declined recently (down 2% in 24 hours, 37% in 30 days to $1,852), with prediction markets suggesting further downside risk to $1,500.
- •The Foundation sees staking as both a funding mechanism and a way to participate directly in Ethereum consensus while setting transparency standards for validator operations.
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The Ethereum Foundation began staking 2,106 ETH—or around $3.8 million worth of the coin—as part of designed treasury operations first outlined last June.
Over time, the Foundation aims to stake around 70,000 ETH, or about $127 million worth, via solo staking, with native ETH rewards going back to the organization to help propel future initiatives.
“By participating directly in consensus through solo staking, the Ethereum Foundation generates native, ETH-denominated yield to help fund its stewardship of the ecosystem,” the Foundation team wrote in a blog post.
“It does so using Ethereum's own economic rails and thereby subjects itself to the friction, risks, and operational realities of staking,” they added, “while setting a standard both in transparency and in operational management of validators.”
The Foundation’s on-chain activity comes amid a recent string of personal sales of ETH from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who is also working to help fund the future of the network and ETH.
In the last few days, Buterin had sold as much as $6.1 million in ETH, and previously said that he would offload around $44.7 million of the second-largest crypto asset in order to help fund the Foundation in its period of “mild austerity.”
That period of austerity, or stricter economic policies to reduce spending, will see the Ethereum Foundation gradually reduce its spending from 15% of its treasury to just 5% annually by 2030.
4/ We are excited to take this important step, which helps secure the Ethereum network and at the same time fund the EF’s core operations & activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grant funding and more.
— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) February 24, 2026
The organization, which has been chided for its sales of Ethereum in the past, also provided more transparency around its expected Ethereum sales as part of last year’s treasury policy update.
Much like Buterin, the Ethereum Foundation has been open about its intentions to sell ETH, detailing that it aims to “periodically calculate the deviation of the treasury’s fiat-denominated assets from the Opex Buffer target and determine how much, if any, ETH will be sold over the next three months.”
Its “opex buffer” is the number of years of runway it holds in its treasury reserve.
The Foundation got a shake-up to its executive leadership team earlier this month when Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak stepped away from his position. Bastian Aue was appointed as interim Co-Executive Director in his place.
ETH, the foundation’s key asset, is down over 2% in the last 24 hours and nearly 37% in the last 30 days, recently changing hands at $1,852.
Users on Myriad—a prediction market operated by Decrypt's parent company, Dastan—expect further losses ahead, penciling in a nearly 75% chance that ETH drops to $1,500 sooner than it can rebound to $3,000.