The ethereum Foundation (EF), a non-profit organization that supports the ethereum blockchain ecosystem, has released its 2024 annual report detailing financial updates, treasury holdings, and recent policy initiatives.
He ethereum.foundation/report-2024.pdf”>report He highlighted the breakdown of the organization's budget, spending over the past few years, and new policies designed to foster transparency and integrity across the ethereum ecosystem.
Treasury holding
As of October 31, 2024, the EF treasury amounted to approximately $970.2 million, of which $788.7 million in cryptocurrencies (mainly eth) and $181.5 million in non-cryptocurrency investments.
EF said its eth holdings represent around 0.26% of the total ethereum supply as of October 31. These significant 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 EF 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, especially during market ups and downs, to ensure adequate resources during market downturns.
Ecosystem treasure
Beyond EF's holdings, the ethereum ecosystem benefits from more than $22 billion in combined treasury assets held by various foundations, organizations, and DAOs.
The treasuries primarily comprise 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 emphasizes that even a small allocation of these treasures would provide significant resources to sustain and grow the ethereum ecosystem in the long term.
Ecosystem financing
The ethereum Foundation and ecosystem partners allocated nearly $500 million to ecosystem projects during 2022 and 2023.
EF contributed $240.3 million (48.3% of total funding), with the rest supported by organizations such as 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, driving innovation and support for builders within the community.
EF Director Aya Miyaguchi emphasized that this funding approach parallels ethereum's decentralized research and development processes, which encourage collaboration and resource sharing projects. She stated:
“We are proud to say that ecosystem funding is a shared effort today, much like ethereum's R&D process, helping builders across the ethereum ecosystem find more paths 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 to strengthen its transparency that exceed $500,000 (excluding eth).
The policy aims to prevent potential conflicts between FA members by excluding them from relevant decisions if they are highly exposed to related assets. Miyaguchi explained that this move represents a step towards improving integrity within EF and the broader ethereum ecosystem.
It's particularly prescient considering that ethereum Foundation researchers recently came under fire for taking on advisory roles on the EigenLayer recovery protocol.
