On March 30, on-chain monitoring platform Arkham reported that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) staked approximately 23,054 ETH, worth about $46.2 million (at ETH's price of ~$2,004), setting a record for the largest single staking transaction in EF history. The EF made no public announcement, but the move is the latest step in a treasury management strategy that has been unfolding over the past 14 months.
Strategy Timeline: From Test Trades to Record Staking
In January 2025, EF first allocated 50,000 ETH to DeFi, executing test transactions on Aave. In February 2025, it sent 81,000 ETH across four platforms — Aave, Lido, Compound, and Spark — while stating it would soon explore staking and more deployments. In February 2026, EF launched official treasury staking via Bitwise Onchain Solutions, depositing an initial 2,016 ETH and revealing a long-term plan to eventually stake around 70,000 ETH. The latest 23,054 ETH transaction brings the total staked to roughly 25,000 ETH, about 36% of the target.
Sell and Lock: Contradiction or Rationality?
The market often interprets EF's staking as a bullish signal, but data tells a more nuanced story. Over the past two years, Vitalik Buterin has been consistently selling personal ETH holdings to fund public goods, and the EF itself has regularly sold ETH on the open market to cover operational expenses. From a financial management perspective, this is not contradictory: EF holds a large pool of liquid ETH, sells some for stable fiat to fund annual expenditures (reportedly around $100 million per year), and locks a separate long-term portion into staking to earn 3-4% APY — a classic liquidity-tiering approach: cash for short-term needs, staking yields for inflation hedging on long-term holdings.
The real question worth asking is not 'why sell while staking,' but rather why EF chose to lock up a large amount when ETH's price is relatively low (~$2,004, still over 60% below its 2021 peak) — is it a bet on ETH's long-term fundamentals, or purely a timing play for treasury operations? The EF has not answered.
Progress and Significance of the 70,000 ETH Target
At the current staking yield of about 3.5%, 70,000 staked ETH would generate roughly 2,450 ETH annually, worth about $4.9 million. For an EF that spends around $100 million per year, this is just a financial subsidy. In terms of total ETH staked — over 34 million ETH — EF's 70,000 plan represents a mere 0.2%. But as a signal, the EF’s move from liquid assets to staked assets suggests it expects long-term staking returns to exceed the opportunity cost of holding liquid ETH; otherwise, keeping ETH liquid would be the rational choice.