The Ethereum Foundation (EF), a non-profit organization supporting the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem, has released its 2024 annual report detailing financial updates, treasury holdings and recent policy initiatives.
The report highlights the organization’s budget breakdown, spending in recent years, and new policies designed to drive transparency and integrity in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Holding of the Treasury
As of October 31, 2024, the FE’s treasury stood at approximately $970.2 million, including $788.7 million in crypto – primarily ETH – and $181.5 million in non-crypto investments.
EF said its ETH holdings represented approximately 0.26% of Ethereum’s total supply as of October 31. These substantial ETH reserves reflect the Foundation’s confidence in the long-term potential of Ethereum and its commitment to maintaining a strong presence within the network.
The FE clarified that its treasury serves as the financial backbone for essential projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. The Foundation periodically converts a portion of its ETH holdings to fiat currency, particularly during market rallies, to ensure adequate resources in the event of a market downturn.
Ecosystem treasure
Beyond EF’s holdings, the Ethereum ecosystem benefits from over $22 billion in combined treasury assets held by various foundations, organizations, and DAOs.
The treasures mainly include the native tokens of crypto projects such as dYdX, Aave, Polygon, The Graph, Optimism, Uniswap, Mantle, Arbitrum, Lido, Gnosis, and Ethereum Name Service.
The report highlights that even a small allocation of these treasuries would provide significant resources to support and grow the Ethereum ecosystem over the long term.
Financing ecosystems
The Ethereum Foundation and ecosystem partners have allocated nearly $500 million to ecosystem projects in 2022 and 2023.
EF contributed $240.3 million (48.3% of total funding), with remaining support from organizations like MakerDAO (rebranded as Sky), Optimism, Gitcoin, Decentraland, Aragon, Uniswap, Starknet, MetaMask DAO, and Protocol Guild .
This crowdfunding emphasizes the collaborative nature of the Ethereum ecosystem, fostering innovation and support for builders within the community.
EF Director Aya Miyaguchi highlighted that this funding approach parallels Ethereum’s decentralized research and development processes, which encourage collaborative projects and resource sharing. She said:
“I’m proud to say that ecosystem funding today is a shared effort, just like Ethereum’s R&D process, which helps builders in the Ethereum ecosystem find more ways to continue innovating. “
Conflict of interest policy
To strengthen its transparency, the Ethereum Foundation has implemented a conflict of interest policy, requiring disclosure of investments and to strengthen its transparency exceeding $500,000 (excluding ETH).
The policy aims to prevent potential conflicts between FE members by excluding them from relevant decisions if they have significant exposure to related assets. Miyaguchi explained that the move represents a step toward strengthening integrity within EF and the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
This is particularly prescient given that Ethereum Foundation researchers have recently come under fire for taking an advisory role in the EigenLayer protocol takeover.
