As of Sunday afternoon, ETH traded near $2,100, up about 2% over the previous 24 hours.
Foundation to sell less ETH, narrow its mandate
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) will scale down its operations and reduce the amount of ETH it sells from its treasury, co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in a detailed post on Sunday. The shift is intended to make the nonprofit leaner and more durable, even as it grapples with senior staff departures and a debate over its role in Ethereum’s economic future.
Buterin said the EF will sell less of its ETH holdings as part of a redesigned structure that aims to support Ethereum for decades. The foundation currently holds about 0.16% of all ETH in circulation, he wrote, far below the share typically held by other major blockchain foundations.
Under the new plan, the EF will concentrate its resources on four priorities grouped under the acronym “CROPS”:
- censorship and capture resistance
- robust open-source development
- privacy protections
- security
Buterin argued that a smaller, more focused EF will be better positioned to survive over the long term and avoid becoming a single point of failure for the network.
From 6 million ETH to a smaller footprint
At Ethereum’s 2014 launch, the foundation received 6 million ETH, equal to 10% of the 60 million coins sold in the crowdsale and roughly 8.3% of the 72 million genesis supply.
Buterin said much of the EF’s original chartered work was effectively completed by 2022. Since then, it has functioned more as one independent actor among many, helping maintain Ethereum’s technical health rather than serving as the dominant center of power.
He also stressed that ETH itself remains the network’s “central financial product.” While the EF will continue funding crucial infrastructure, he said groups with much larger holdings than the foundation will need to shoulder more responsibility for broader ecosystem development.
Leadership transition as senior staff exit
The restructuring comes amid notable personnel turnover. At least eight senior contributors have left the EF in 2026, including five in May alone. Departures have included protocol coordinators and other key technical staff, raising questions about execution risk for Ethereum’s roadmap.
The number of core developers has slipped from 225 in May 2025 to 169 by mid-May 2026, a measurable loss of institutional knowledge that could slow development.
Interim co-executive director Bastian Aue, who took over from Tomasz Stanczak earlier this year, is overseeing the transition. Board expansion talks are ongoing, and Buterin said his own influence within the EF will continue to decline as the board’s role broadens.
Market impact: less selling pressure, more structural demand
The EF’s pledge to reduce ETH sales alters the near-term supply outlook for the asset. Historically, the foundation has periodically sold ETH to finance grants and operations, creating intermittent selling pressure.
The timing intersects with strong structural demand:
- net inflows into ETH-based exchange-traded products have exceeded $2.2 billion in the first months of 2026
- options open interest has climbed to nearly $7 billion, indicating significant positioning by sophisticated market participants
Against that backdrop, the EF’s move to cut back on treasury sales is generally supportive of ETH’s supply-demand balance.
Yet markets are weighing this against concerns around internal stability and execution capacity, as the wave of senior exits creates uncertainty over how efficiently the new strategy can be delivered.
Technical roadmap: resilience over raw speed
Buterin outlined three main technical priorities for Ethereum’s next phase:
- provably bug-free code
- rely on AI-assisted formal verification to reduce critical bugs
- more robust consensus
- refine Ethereum’s consensus design so it remains reliable under a wide range of network conditions
- fewer intermediaries
- minimize trusted actors using protocols and proposals such as FOCIL, EIP-8141, EIP-7701, and the Kohaku framework
He framed these goals as strengthening autonomy and operational resilience, not as a direct push for higher transaction throughput.
Buterin also drew a clear philosophical line between Ethereum and chains that depend on manual intervention or ad hoc social consensus to stay operational. For systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, he said, this kind of reliance is not an acceptable long-term model.
Culture, decentralization, and a new funding proposal
The EF’s restructuring follows months of community debate over decentralization, internal culture, and the foundation’s role. Tensions rose after a March policy document that restated the EF’s stewardship position over the protocol, prompting criticism from some who fear centralization of influence.
Former developer Dankrad Feist has proposed a separate, large-scale fundraising initiative to address those concerns from a different angle. His plan calls for raising at least $1 billion for a new organization dedicated to external Ethereum advocacy and more direct support of ETH’s economic position.
Feist argues that an entity holding less than 0.1% of total ETH supply—where the EF is trending—may lack the economic incentive to push aggressively for growth. His proposal underscores a widening philosophical split between:
- those who see the EF as a neutral technical steward focused on protocol health
- those who want a body explicitly aligned with boosting ETH’s market competitiveness
A “smaller ship” with long-term ambitions
Buterin described the future EF as a “smaller ship”: a leaner, more focused organization aimed at efficiency and durability rather than scale.
The plan reduces the foundation’s direct footprint on both Ethereum’s governance and its token supply, while betting that a wider ecosystem of independent teams and large external holders will take on a greater share of the network’s economic and advocacy work.
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