Ethereum Foundation Announces Expenditure Situation and Future Development Direction

Recently, the financial transparency of the Ethereum Foundation has attracted widespread attention from the crypto community. In response to the inquiries, the foundation published its official expenditure report at the end of August.

Data shows that "new institutions" account for the largest share of the foundation's expenditures, at 36.5%. This category includes grants provided to multiple organizations, such as certain foundations and research centers, aimed at strengthening the Ethereum community in the long term.

L1 research and development is the second largest expenditure category, accounting for 24.9% of total expenditures. This includes funding external client teams (62%) and internal foundation researchers (38%). Internal spending covers multiple teams, such as Geth, cryptography research, developer conferences, Solidity, and more.

The remaining expenditures of the foundation also include community development (12.7%), zero-knowledge applications (10.4%), internal operations (7.7%), developer platforms (6.5%), and L2 research and development (1.4%).

Vitalik Buterin revealed that his annual salary at the organization is approximately $139,500, which is not considered high compared to his estimated net worth. Regarding the fund management plan, the foundation will spend 15% of the remaining funds each year, meaning the foundation will exist in the long term, but its influence in the ecosystem will gradually diminish.

Vitalik's Recent Sale of Ether Sparks Controversy

On September 12, Vitalik sold ETH worth $441,000 again, triggering a new round of controversy. He explained that this transaction was triggered by an automated order set in August and emphasized that this was the last transaction used to fund ecological defense projects. Vitalik insisted that he has never profited from ETH sales, and all proceeds have been used to fund projects.

The Ethereum team's attitude towards DeFi

Some developers accused Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation of "being against DeFi". In response, Vitalik stated that he has always been focused on decentralized exchanges and sustainable projects, but is not interested in short-term projects. Foundation members indicated that the most valuable contribution of DeFi on Ethereum is decentralized stablecoins, although they currently have scalability limitations.

Research Directions of the Ethereum Foundation

The foundation is actively researching multiple technical areas, including zero-knowledge proofs, verifiable delay functions, maximum extractable value, etc. Team members discussed the potential applications and development directions of these technologies, as well as how to improve network performance and security.

ETH Value Accumulation Issue

Foundation members believe that the accumulation of ETH's value is crucial to the success of Ethereum. They emphasized the importance of ETH as a currency supporting decentralized stablecoins and providing network security. In the future, even with very low transaction fees, substantial revenue can be generated through a large number of transactions.

Addressing the Centralization Issues of Layer 2

Regarding the centralization issues of Layer 2 solutions, Vitalik proposed a decentralization standard. He plans to only publicly mention L2 projects that reach Stage 1 or higher, which requires a consensus of 75% from the council to overturn the proof system, and at least 26% of the council members must be independent of the team.

Despite facing some challenges, Ethereum's fundamentals remain intact. The biggest current issue is that industry applications are encountering bottlenecks, but the low fees of L2 are promoting the development of new applications. As the market environment improves, the adoption rate in the crypto industry is expected to accelerate, and the future of Ethereum is still promising.