Ethereum Foundation is no longer selling tokens! Launching the first staking with "70,000 ETH transfer to Beacon Chain," with all proceeds fully supporting the development ecosystem.

Ethereum Foundation today officially announced the launch of its treasury ETH staking, implementing the treasury policy announced last year. Approximately 70,000 ETH will be staked, with all staking rewards returning to the foundation’s treasury to support protocol development, ecosystem growth, and community funding.
(Background: The Ethereum Foundation transferred 81,000 ETH to four major DeFi platforms and will soon explore staking and more deployments.)
(Additional context: The Foundation announced five major financial reforms: reducing ETH expenses to 5% by 2030, strengthening staking and DeFi deployments.)

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• Using open-source decentralized solutions to eliminate single points of failure
• Minority client + multi-region hardware deployment
• From “selling tokens” to “staking”: a major shift in financial strategy

Today, the Ethereum Foundation officially announced that it has begun staking a portion of its treasury assets, marking the foundation’s first direct participation in Ethereum consensus layer validation. On-chain data shows that today, the foundation deposited 2,016 ETH, with about 70,000 ETH expected to be staked gradually. All staking rewards will flow back into the foundation’s treasury to provide sustainable funding for core operations.

Using open-source decentralized solutions to eliminate single points of failure

This staking is not managed through third-party custodial services but uses two open-source tools developed by Attestant:

• Dirk (Distributed Signing Tool): Distributes signers across multiple geographic regions and jurisdictions, operated by independent entities in each area, fundamentally eliminating single point of failure risks.
• Vouch (Multi-Client Management Tool): Supports pairing multiple beacon chain clients and execution layer clients, with configurable strategies to reduce client diversity risks.

For validator configuration, the foundation uses Type 2 (0x02) withdrawal credentials, with a maximum effective balance of 2,048 ETH per validator. Only about 35 signing key sets are needed to manage all staked assets. Additionally, the foundation opts for local block building rather than proposer-builder separation (PBS) sidecars.

Minority client + multi-region hardware deployment

The foundation states that its deployment deliberately uses minority clients and combines managed infrastructure with hardware across multiple regions. This design demonstrates the foundation’s emphasis on client diversity and sets a best practice example for other institutional stakers.

The foundation emphasizes that by directly participating in consensus layer validation, it can generate native ETH valuation rewards to support ecosystem maintenance, while also experiencing the friction, risks, and operational realities of staking firsthand. This helps establish transparency standards for validator management.

From “selling tokens” to “staking”: a major shift in financial strategy

In the past, the Ethereum Foundation was often criticized for frequently selling ETH to cover operational expenses. Last year, the foundation announced a new treasury policy, committing to allocate 15% of the treasury annually for operational costs, maintaining a 2.5-year financial buffer, and planning to gradually reduce annual expenditure ratios to 5% over five years.

This year, the foundation has already deployed about 81,000 ETH into DeFi protocols such as Aave, Spark, and Compound. Now, with the official launch of direct staking, it marks a complete shift in financial strategy from “passively holding and periodically selling” to “actively earning yields and sustaining operations.”