Ethereum Foundation Plans to Shrink and Sell Less ETH
Ethereum (ETH) co-creator Vitalik Buterin said on May 24, that the Ethereum Foundation plans to operate as a “smaller ship,” selling less ETH from its treasury as the organization navigates a wave of senior researcher departures. The comments, published by The Block, amount to the most direct public acknowledgment yet that the Foundation is undergoing a structural contraction.
Eight researchers have left the Foundation in 2026, with five departing in May alone.
Vitalik’s “Smaller Ship” Framing
Buterin’s language was deliberate. A smaller organization, he said, would be more focused and less reliant on large ETH treasury sales to fund operations.
The Foundation has historically sold ETH to cover grants, salaries, and research costs, a practice that periodically draws criticism from the Ethereum community as a source of sell-side pressure. Buterin did not specify a new annual sale target or a revised budget figure.
The Block’s report cited the comments as part of a broader statement on the Foundation’s direction. Buterin framed the shift as a return to core values rather than a response to financial pressure.
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How We Got Here
The Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit incorporated in Zug, has been the primary steward of Ethereum’s research and protocol development since the network launched in 2015.
It funds core client teams, zero-knowledge research, and ecosystem grants through a treasury that holds thousands of ETH. Concerns about the Foundation’s internal direction surfaced in early 2026 as multiple high-profile researchers posted public departure notices.
The exits accelerated through May, covering researchers working on consensus layer design, cryptography, and formal verification. The departures follow a broader pattern of protocol researchers moving to independent labs, venture-backed teams, or competing Layer-1 projects where compensation structures differ substantially from the Foundation’s grant model.
Noncemedia.com previously covered the AI-accelerated quantum threat to crypto blockchains, a research area where several departing Ethereum contributors had been active.
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What to Watch
The practical impact of reduced ETH sales depends on the scale of cuts relative to the Foundation’s annual burn rate. In prior years, the Foundation sold between $50M and $100M worth of ETH annually to fund operations, based on public on-chain data tracked by community analysts on Etherscan.
A meaningful reduction would lower sell-side pressure at the protocol level, a positive signal for ETH holders. The deeper question is whether a leaner Foundation retains enough research capacity to drive Ethereum’s core roadmap, including the next stages of the Pectra upgrade and long-term statelessness work.
Five researcher departures in a single month is a pace the Foundation has not previously disclosed in any comparable period.
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