The Ethereum Foundation’s move to support Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem comes after months of criticism accusing it of not caring enough about the space.
The Ethereum Foundation said it will allocate 50,000 Ether worth around $165 million to support Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote on X on Jan. 20 that the nonprofit foundation would undergo organizational changes to more actively support app builders and provide more transparency to the community.
The funds will be secured in a three-of-five multisig wallet on Safe, which has already executed a test transaction on lending protocol Aave, the Ethereum Foundation’s Hsiao-Wei Wang said in a Jan. 20 X post.
However, it could take a few days to set the wallet up, Wang noted.
Reaping the rewards from the Ethereum network’s DeFi ecosystem could expand the foundation’s treasury, which has fallen 56% from 617,000 Ether
$ETH 3,270.29
in January 2020 to 269,000 Ether — worth around $894 million, Arkham Intelligence data shows.
The promised 50,000 Ether represents 18.5% of the Ethereum Foundation’s total holdings.