Overview
- Buterin said he withdrew 16,384 ETH—reported at roughly $43–45 million—to deploy over several years into open-source, privacy-first and verifiable infrastructure.
- He framed the effort as “Ethereum for people who need it,” emphasizing decentralization, self-sovereignty, security and privacy over corporate adoption.
- The Ethereum Foundation will operate under a five-year period of “mild austerity” to deliver its scaling roadmap while preserving long-term financial sustainability.
- Buterin will personally take on initiatives once handled as EF special projects, spanning open silicon and secure hardware, zero-knowledge and FHE-based tools, encrypted messaging, local-first operating systems and select biotech-adjacent work.
- He is exploring decentralized staking to grow a replenishing funding pool, with coverage noting ETH near ~$2,700 and Arkham’s estimates of EF and Buterin holdings at about $558M and $666M.