Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Foundation is Considering Staking ETH

Vitalik Buterin revealed that the Ethereum Foundation has been exploring staking options in response to calls from community members for staking ETH and earning yield to cover the expenses incurred by the Foundation.

For example, in a recent X post, angel investor Eric Conner mocked the Ethereum Foundation by saying, “The EF uses the chain, actually our number 1 use case is dumping ETH.” Conner said that “EF could easily stake ETH and use DeFi to cover most if not all of their internal budget.”

In response, Buterin explained why the Ethereum Foundation had been hesitant to stake its ETH.

One major reason is regulatory risks. The other main issue is that it forces the Foundation to take a position on any future contentious hard fork, where two chains are fighting against each other to come out as the ‘official’ one.

Buterin further explained why this could not be left to the community’s choice as there would be a high risk of slashing, and it could be difficult to unstake in time to avoid the scenario.

However, Buterin noted that the regulatory environment is better than ever, and the risks have decreased, implying that the Foundation is more open to the idea of staking its ETH holdings.

According to Etherscan data, the Ethereum Foundation holds 268,774 ETH, worth $897 million.