Ethereum Foundation Releases Budget Allocation After Recent Controversy
After criticism from the community, the Ethereum Foundation has released its latest report on its budget allocation in recent years.
Josh Stark, a representative of the Ethereum Foundation, posted a series of posts on the evening of August 27, announcing some important information surrounding the organization's budget allocation.
1. First, we’ve been working on a new EF report, covering 2022 and 2023. We’re expecting to publish it before Devcon SEA.
Here’s a preview of spend information from the upcoming report (exact figures TBD). pic.twitter.com/jicVHOy5r7— Josh Stark (@0xstark) August 27, 2024
The largest portion of this allocation is the “L1 R&D” category, with 30.4% (2022) and 24.9% (2023). This category includes spending on internal research and incentives (Grant) for research teams developing client software.
Another large allocation highlighted by Josh Stark in the series is the “New Institutions” category. This category includes incentives for external organizations, to contribute and strengthen the Ethereum ecosystem in the long run.
6. The biggest new category in the charts I shared above is “New Institutions”.
One key goal for the EF is to help build up new organizations that can strengthen and support the Ethereum ecosystem in the long run.
— Josh Stark (@0xstark) August 27, 2024
Some notable names mentioned in this category of external organizations include Nomic Foundation, TheDRC, L2Beat, 0xPARC Foundation,...
The above tweet from Josh Stark was also shared by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, with a bit of sarcasm after intense pressure from the community over the past week. Specifically, Vitalik said that "New Institutions" is not an activity to fund "insect food research at the World Economic Forum conference".
Updates from @0xstark on EF spending.
The key info is in this chart.
The "new institutions" category basically means @NomicFoundation, @TheDRC_ , @l2beat, @0xPARC etc - no World Economic Forum insect protein research here!
More info has been and will be published; see thread. https://t.co/sWVfQQ5XQF pic.twitter.com/FY2EPT7Wiz— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 27, 2024
In addition to the two large allocations above, the remaining items in the budget include ZK Technology Application, Community Development, Developer Platform, Internal Operation Optimization, and Layer-2 Research and Development.
Vitalik also revealed that he receives an annual salary of nearly $140,000.
182,000 SGD per year
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 27, 2024
Last week, after the move to move ETH to CEX exchanges, the Ethereum Foundation was questioned by the community about the transparency of its budget allocation, with the annual expenditure amounting to $100 million. The move from Josh Stark is somewhat of a cure for the recent controversy. The Ethereum Foundation representative said that the detailed report will be released before the Devcon SEA 2024 event takes place in November this year.
