Ethereum Foundation’s Treasury Shrunk 39% Over 2 1/2 Years to $970M

The Ethereum Foundation, which stewards development of the second-largest blockchain, on Friday released its long-awaited financial report, revealing it had $970.2 million in its treasury as of Oct.31.

That’s down 39% from $1.6 billion on March 31, 2022, the last date for which figures were previously available.

The disclosure comes as many community members have pushed the foundation to be more transparent about its financial holdings, given its critical role and vast influence over the Ethereum ecosystem. The last time the foundation published a financial report was in April 2022.

Most ($788.7 million, or 81.3%) of the foundation’s treasury is held in crypto, with the vast majority (99.45%) of that in ether (ETH). The remaining $181.5 million is non-crypto investments and assets.

“We choose to hold the majority of our treasury in ETH. The EF believes in Ethereum’s potential, and our ETH holdings represent that long term perspective,” the report says. “At the same time, the goal of the EF’s treasury is to fund important public goods for the Ethereum ecosystem for years into the future. To achieve this goal we must follow a conservative treasury management policy that ensures we have sufficient resources even in the case of a multi-year market downturn.”

Since the last snapshot in March 2022, when ETH was trading around $3,300, the price has slid 22% to roughly $2,600, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The foundation spent $105.4 million in 2022 and $134.9 million last year, it revealed.

The figures are consistent with statements made in September by foundation researcher Justin Drake, who shared in a Reddit AMA that the foundation spends about $100 million a year and holds $650 million in its main wallet. The foundation has roughly 10 years of runway, Drake said then.

The foundation also revealed it is implementing a new conflict of interest policy, emphasizing that researchers and developers must inform the organization if they plan to take on any additional outside work and whether they plan to invest in funds. If the outside work pays more than $25,000 annually, and if they want to make investments, these must be reviewed by a discussion group.

People working at the foundation will not be allowed to take on outside work and get paid in illiquid assets with an unknown market value, including advisorship token packages before the launch of projects, the report emphasized.

The conflict-of-interest policy comes after two top Ethereum researchers, Drake and Dankrad Feist, revealed last week that they would be leaving their advisorship roles at EigenLayer, the giant restaking platform on Ethereum.

Their positions with the Eigen Foundation came with a significant token payout from EigenLayer, a fact that raised concerns of conflict of interests when the two developers disclosed their new roles in May.

Read more: Ethereum Foundation’s Main Wallet Down to About $650M, Top Official Says