The Ethereum Foundation completed its 70,000 ETH staking target on April 3, 2026, depositing approximately $93 million in a single day to bring its cumulative staked position to roughly $143 million. The initiative, announced February 24, 2026, marks the most significant operational shift in the ...
"Rather than keeping ETH idle, the Foundation now deploys holdings to generate returns while strengthening the network it serves." — Ethereum Foundation, Treasury Policy Paper (June 2025)
The Ethereum Foundation completed its 70,000 ETH staking target on April 3, 2026, depositing approximately $93 million in a single day to bring its cumulative staked position to roughly $143 million. The initiative, announced February 24, 2026, marks the most significant operational shift in the Foundation's 11-year history: a move from periodic ETH liquidations to on-chain yield generation.
The Foundation's treasury stood at approximately 172,650 ETH plus 10,000 WETH as of the staking announcement, valued at roughly $375 million at current prices. Annual expenses run approximately $100 million. The staking yield — estimated at $3.9 million to $5.4 million per year at current rates — covers a fraction of that gap, but the directional shift is clear: the Foundation is attempting to build a self-sustaining endowment rather than draw down principal.
Simultaneously, the Foundation paused its open grants program, imposed a 15% annual spending cap on treasury value, and committed to reducing that figure to 5% by 2030. Quarterly financial disclosures are now mandatory. These moves follow years of community criticism over ETH sales, spending opacity, and perceived organizational drift.
The Foundation's staking operation uses Dirk and Vouch, open-source validator tools developed by infrastructure firm Attestant. Dirk functions as a distributed signer enabling coordination across multiple jurisdictions; Vouch handles validator duties. The infrastructure combines hosted solutions and self-managed hardware, running minority clients across several countries to avoid single-point-of-failure risks.
Deposits arrived in batches of 2,047 ETH each — just below the post-Pectra maximum effective balance of 2,048 ETH per validator. The April 3 deposit of approximately 45,034 ETH followed a March 30-31 round of 22,517 ETH across 11 transactions. An initial 2,016 ETH test deposit on February 24 kicked off the process.
The timeline:
| Date | ETH Deposited | Cumulative Total | |------|--------------|-----------------| | Feb 24, 2026 | 2,016 | 2,016 | | Mar 30-31, 2026 | 22,517 | 24,533 | | Apr 3, 2026 | ~45,034 | ~69,567 |
The Foundation chose native solo staking over liquid staking protocols such as Lido. This decision aligns with the treasury policy's stated preference to "favor battle-tested, immutable, audited, permissionless protocols" and avoids concentrating governance power in third-party liquid staking derivatives.
The Foundation's total treasury comprised approximately 172,650 ETH plus 10,000 WETH at the time of the staking announcement. At an ETH price of roughly $2,059 on April 3, that places the crypto portfolio at approximately $375 million.
With 69,567 ETH now staked, the breakdown is:
The CoinDesk Composite Ether Staking Rate stood at approximately 2.808% at the time of staking. Applied to 69,567 ETH, that yields roughly 1,953 ETH per year, or $4.0 million at current prices. Estimates from multiple sources place the annual staking income between $3.9 million and $5.4 million, depending on network conditions and fee spikes.
Annual expenses have historically run between $100 million and $135 million. In 2022, spending was $105.4 million. In 2023, it rose to $134.9 million. The Foundation's 2024 report disclosed a treasury worth $970.2 million as of October 31, 2024 — a 39% decline from two and a half years earlier.
At current ETH prices near $2,059 (versus $3,500+ in late 2024), the treasury's dollar value has compressed further. The staking yield covers approximately 4-5% of annual expenses. The remaining gap must be filled by ETH sales, fiat reserves, or spending cuts.
Throughout 2024, the Foundation sold 4,666 ETH at an average price of $2,823, generating $12.61 million — approximately $421,000 every 11 days. In early 2025, sales continued: 300 ETH sold in January alone for roughly $981,200. Over the full year, approximately 36,000 ETH was liquidated via CoW Swap.
Community reaction to these sales has been consistently negative. Critics argue that Foundation sell orders amplify downward price pressure during periods of market weakness and send negative sentiment signals. A $654 million ETH relocation in October 2025 triggered particular scrutiny, though the Foundation characterized it as a routine treasury reorganization.
The staking initiative directly addresses this criticism. By generating yield on-chain, the Foundation reduces — but does not eliminate — the need for periodic liquidations. The treasury policy formula calculates fiat reserve targets as Annual Opex × 2.5 years, with the size and cadence of ETH sales determined by the gap between target fiat reserves and actual fiat holdings.
The Foundation paused its Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) open grants in early 2026. The program, launched in 2018, had awarded over $3 million across more than 100 projects in its most recent round. The Foundation cited "high volume of inbound applications" consuming team resources and limiting capacity for strategic initiatives.
The treasury policy released in June 2025 introduced hard spending constraints:
At a $375 million treasury, the 15% cap implies maximum annual spending of $56.25 million — roughly half the $105-135 million spent in 2022-2023. The 5% target by 2030 would constrain spending to $18.75 million per year at current treasury levels, though the Foundation presumably expects ETH appreciation to expand the dollar-denominated budget.
The Foundation characterized this period as one of "moderate austerity." Targeted funding continues through academic grants, PhD fellowships ($24,000 per recipient), and strategic ecosystem investments, but the broad open-application pipeline is closed.
The treasury overhaul accompanies leadership changes initiated in February 2025. Aya Miyaguchi, who served as Executive Director for seven years, transitioned to the role of President. In her new capacity, Miyaguchi leads institutional partnerships and organizational culture rather than day-to-day operations.
Co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Miyaguchi "has accomplished much in her seven years as executive director." The new leadership model operates under what the Foundation describes as a "full trust and parallel full mandate" approach — each leader can make independent decisions while maintaining collaboration.
The Foundation released a policy paper in June 2025 addressing past incidents related to conflicts of interest, community transparency, and treasury management. Quarterly reporting requirements were formalized, marking the first time the Foundation committed to regular public financial disclosure.
The Foundation's trajectory points toward a university-endowment model: a large principal generates yield to fund operations indefinitely, with the principal itself preserved or grown. The key parameters:
Current state (April 2026):
Target state (2030):
The math reveals the Foundation's implicit assumption: ETH must appreciate significantly for the endowment model to work without ongoing principal drawdowns. At $2,059 per ETH, the 172,650 ETH treasury is worth $375 million. At $5,800 per ETH, it would reach $1 billion. At $11,600, it would reach $2 billion.
The Foundation's crypto asset deployment strategy extends beyond staking. The treasury policy outlines plans for wETH supplied to established lending protocols, select on-chain allocations including farms and tokenized RWAs, and positions in DeFi — all governed by conservative risk parameters and limited to modest portions of any single project's total value locked.
Fiat assets are split across three tiers: immediate-liquidity instruments for operations, liability-matched reserves in fixed deposits and investment-grade bonds, and tokenized RWAs under the same guidelines as crypto assets.
The Ethereum Foundation's treasury overhaul is an exercise in institutional maturation under pressure. Years of community criticism over ETH sales and spending opacity forced structural reforms: hard spending caps, mandatory disclosure, and a yield-generating staking program.
The staking initiative is directionally significant but arithmetically insufficient. At ~$4-5 million in annual yield against ~$100 million in expenses, the Foundation remains a net seller of ETH for the foreseeable future. The endowment model only becomes self-sustaining if ETH prices rise substantially or if spending cuts deeper than currently planned.
What the initiative does accomplish is signaling. The Foundation now participates in the network it oversees — staking validators, earning rewards, and bearing the same smart contract risks as any other participant. For an organization frequently criticized for detachment from the protocol's economic reality, that alignment matters.
The remaining 100,000+ unstaked ETH represents a strategic reserve and an unresolved question. Whether the Foundation expands staking, begins DeFi yield strategies, or maintains a conservative liquid buffer will define the next phase of its fiscal trajectory.