Ethereum Foundation begins staking 70,000 ETH to support operations

The Ethereum Foundation (EF), which supports the development of the Ethereum blockchain, has started staking a portion of its treasury holdings to fund operations and bolster network security, the team announced on Tuesday.

1/ The Ethereum Foundation has begun staking a portion of its treasury, in line with its Treasury Policy announced last year.

Today, the EF made a 2016 $ETH deposit. Approximately 70,000 $ETH will be staked with rewards directed back to the EF treasury.

— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) February 24, 2026

The foundation made an initial deposit of 2,016 $ETH today, with plans to stake roughly 70,000 $ETH in total. Staking rewards will flow back into the organization’s treasury to support protocol research, ecosystem development, and community grants.

The decision comes after the EF introduced a Treasury Policy in June 2025, establishing an asset-liability model based on a 15% annual spending rate relative to total treasury value and a 2.5-year operating runway. Historically reliant on direct $ETH sales, the foundation is now increasingly turning to staking and DeFi strategies to support long-term sustainability.

For the staking infrastructure, the team is using Dirk and Vouch, open-source tools developed by Attestant. Dirk functions as a distributed signing system operated by individuals across multiple jurisdictions, eliminating any single point of failure for validation duties.

Vouch enables the use of several client pairings with built-in strategies designed to reduce risks tied to client concentration. The setup also incorporates minority clients and a combination of hosted and self-managed hardware spread across different regions.

The foundation holds more than 172,00 $ETH in reserves, valued at around $315 million, and over 10,000 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH), per Arkham Intelligence.