Ethereum Foundation update details role in ecosystem and funding plans for year ahead
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has released a broad update, detailing its role in the ecosystem and its specific plans for resource allocation over the next 12 months.
The update begins by noting that the Foundation currently holds approximately 0.6% of ETH in circulation, valued at approximately $164 million, as well as reserves held in cash. Despite this deep treasury, the Foundation is keen to encourage other community organizations to support high-priority projects while simultaneously supporting innovative funding mechanisms like Gitcoin and MolochDAO. Indeed, last week Ameen Soleimani, the founder of MolochDAO, announced that the Ethereum Foundation had submitted a 1,000 ETH application proposal to the grant-making co-operative.
The post also acknowledges that the Ethereum Foundation is widely considered to be the first stop for corporations and governments seeking to learn more about the Ethereum ecosystem. As such, the EF will take more initiative moving forward to educate newcomers, as well as on-boarding developers and improving the overall developer experience.
The update proceeds to highlight the work supported by the EF over the last 12 months, including: engaging Runtime Verification to formally verify the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract and to formally specify the beacon chain; funding Alexey Akhunov’s research into stateless clients and state fees, and supporting Barry Whitehat and Matter Labs’ collaboration on ZK-rollup.
Over the next year the Ethereum Foundation plans to spend $30 million on key projects across the ecosystem. $19 million of this budget will be allocated towards Ethereum 2.0-specific projects including: client development, state channels & plasma, formal verification, and EWASM. A sum of $8 million will be reserved for ETH 1.x initiatives, while the remaining $3 million will be put towards developer education, community event organization, and continued improvements to ethereum.org.
