Ethereum Foundation announces new treasury policy: will actively allocate assets to promote the Defipunk spirit and privacy-first DeFi ecosystem

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) recently officially announced its latest treasury management policy, which explains how to flexibly adjust asset allocation to cope with market fluctuations while maintaining a long-term commitment to the Ethereum ecosystem. This policy document not only emphasizes financial transparency and robust asset allocation, but also further promotes the so-called "Defipunk" vision - combining the Cypherpunk spirit with the principles of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Ethereum Foundation sets financial goals to reduce spending

The Ethereum Foundation has established a clear asset-liability management structure, focusing on two major financial indicators: "annual operating expenditure (Opex)" and "operating reserve fund years (Buffer)". Currently set as: annual expenditure accounts for 15% of the total treasury, and retains 2.5 years of operating buffer.

This strategy allows the foundation to provide more support in bear markets and take a conservative stance in bull markets. EF expects to gradually reduce annual operating expenses to 5% of the long-term target over the next five years to move towards a more sustainable management model.

Principles of Crypto Asset Deployment: Security, Prudence, and Support for Ethereum Ecosystem

The Foundation is cautious about the operation of crypto assets, and the policy emphasizes:

• Prioritize battle-tested, permissionless, and open-source protocols;

• Prefer deployment strategies with high liquidity and controllable risks;

• Only projects with a moderate proportion of TVL (total locked volume) in the overall DeFi ecosystem will be supported.

The current deployment strategies include solo staking and providing wETH to mainstream lending protocols. In the future, some audited DeFi yield products or on-chain RWA (real world assets) will be gradually incorporated into the fiat asset allocation.

Fiat currency asset allocation: three-tier structure strengthens liquidity and stability

The foundation's fiat currency assets are divided into three tiers:

1. Immediate current assets : used for daily operations;

2. Liability matching reserves : such as time deposits, investment-grade bonds, etc.;

3. Tokenized RWA : Strategy and risk management principles are the same as on-chain assets.

Such a structure helps maintain stable cash flow and contract fulfillment capabilities in a volatile market.

Financial transparency and reporting system: strengthening internal supervision and external trust

The Foundation's financial team submits quarterly reports to the Board of Directors and Management, covering:

• Financial performance (including performance against benchmarks);

• All asset position changes;

• Summary of important events (including security incidents, cooperative developments, etc.).

In addition, an annual report will be published every year, detailing the allocation ratios of various assets, such as the proportion of fiat currency held, idle ETH, and deployed ETH, to enhance the community and partners' understanding of EF's financial status.

Defipunk Vision: Privacy, open source, and self-sovereignty are the core

EF takes "Defipunk" as its future development direction. This is an evaluation framework that continues the spirit of Cypherpunk and combines the value of DeFi. The key points are as follows:

• Support open source, secure, and trustless protocols;

• Encourage the use of cryptographic technology to replace traditional trust mechanisms (such as multi-signature or legal contracts);

• Promote practical privacy protection measures and oppose "default surveillance" design.

EF believes that the lack of privacy will make users vulnerable to surveillance and exploitation in market operations, such as "sandwich attacks", liquidation sniping or data extortion. The Foundation calls on the community and developers to review the design standards to prevent the expedient design during the rapid growth period from becoming a long-term limitation.

Defipunk in action: From internal operations to protocol support

EF said that the Defipunk spirit should "start from within", including:

• Use and contribute to open source, privacy-preserving tools;

• Encourage equal contribution from anonymous and pseudonymous participants;

• Improve your team's skills in cryptography and decentralized tools.

In addition, EF has also established specific Defipunk evaluation criteria to screen whether the protocol is worthy of support, including whether it supports open access without KYC, whether it emphasizes self-custody, whether it is truly open source, whether it has substantive privacy protection functions, etc. EF used to support Ethereum mainly by holding ETH, but now it has gradually shifted to a more active governance and deployment role, including staking, liquidity provision and participation in on-chain governance.

This is not just an adjustment of financial strategy, but also a redefinition of EF’s role as the core guardian of Ethereum - not only guarding the treasury, but also guarding the value.

Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and CEO of Consensys, recently revealed that he is in talks with a sovereign wealth fund and bank of a "very large country" to explore building financial and technical infrastructure on the Ethereum ecosystem. This potential cooperation may bring an unprecedented wave of national adoption to ETH, and also symbolizes that on-chain finance is moving towards the international sovereign level.

Sovereign wealth funds and national banks are considering entering the market to build Ethereum L2 ?

In a recent Rug Radio episode of Fomo Hour, Lubin mentioned that he and Consensys are in deep conversations with a sovereign fund and a large bank from a “very large country” about how to build infrastructure on Ethereum L1 and possibly extend to a customized architecture for L2 :

These traditional financial giants are actively evaluating the feasibility of Ethereum as the backbone platform of the future global financial system.

Although Lubin did not disclose the specific country name, the news was enough to spark heated discussions in the community. If sovereign countries officially enter the Ethereum market, they may not only adopt ETH as a strategic reserve asset, but will also bring positive structural changes to the entire crypto industry.

Can ETH become the next "national reserve asset"?

In the past few years, Bitcoin has been included in the treasury assets of some countries such as El Salvador , while ETH has not yet been recognized by countries of similar size. However, as Ethereum turns to POS and has the characteristics of high programmability and the ability to participate in ecological operations, Lubin believes that ETH's positioning is gradually becoming clear, that is, "the most valuable trust commodity in the world":

ETH's functions and positioning span roles such as the world's computer and digital energy similar to oil. It may eventually be regarded as the world's most valuable digital trust medium.

He even boldly predicted that in the long run, the value of ETH may surpass that of Bitcoin.

(The Ethereum Foundation has undergone a major reorganization, with the expansion of L1, strengthening of Rollup-specific Blobspace, and optimization of UX as the main axes )

SharpLink Investment Case: Building an Active Ethereum Financial Strategy

In addition to national-level cooperation, Lubin is also accelerating the application of ETH through enterprise examples. He recently led Consensys to invest in the listed company SharpLink Gaming, injecting $425 million to establish a new Ethereum financial reserve:

Unlike MicroStrategy's strategy of simply holding Bitcoin, SharpLink will adopt an "active finance" model, seeking a stable source of income through staking, re-staking and participating in DeFi.

Lubin is now chairman of SharpLink's board, and the company's stock has seen wild swings in response to the deal. Despite the wild swings, SharpLink (SBET) is still up 922% in the past month.

( SharpLink announced a 1 billion Mg Ethereum reserve plan, and SBET's stock price soared and experienced multiple circuit breakers )

Lubin looks at the price of coins: Ethereum's value lies in its application potential

Compared to the clear positioning of Bitcoin as "digital gold" and Solana as "high-speed chain", Lubin admitted that Ethereum has always been like an "intermediate product" between the two, with a vague narrative and prices that have not kept up. But he emphasized that this is a symbol of Ethereum's focus on long-term development:

We are building infrastructure for the broadband era of the future. Although prices have fallen in the short term and the narrative is weak, the Ethereum ecosystem is actually progressing very steadily.

Lubin said, “The value of ETH should not be judged solely by its price, but by its capabilities and application potential as a system asset.”

(From JPMorgan Chase to Ethereum: How does on-chain “controllable privacy” change the rules of the blockchain and financial game? )

Will ETH be the new standard of trust?

As the global financial system faces a "structural void in the middle class" and a "cyclical end", Lubin believes that the answer will come from " decentralized protocols " rather than the old system. He firmly believes that Ethereum has the potential to lay the foundation for the next generation of the global financial system and has already attracted the attention of sovereign funds.

( The prosperity and disillusionment of the "white lotus" generation: When will the crisis of the American middle class under the asset bubble come? )

If ETH can transform from a technical infrastructure to a global trust standard or a national reserve asset, then Ethereum's narrative may no longer be vague and the price of the currency will no longer be so depressed.

Even though the DeFi market is already full of applications such as DEX, mortgage lending, pledge and re-pledge, " unsecured credit lending " has never been effectively implemented. Credit startup 3Jane recently announced the completion of a $5.2 million seed round led by Paradigm, with the goal of creating the first credit lending market native to the blockchain that can lend to crypto users and AI agents.

3Jane builds an unsecured credit lending platform: borrowing from the future, not from the spot

The core concept of 3Jane is to allow users to " borrow money with credit " without providing on-chain collateral, creating a new generation of DeFi lending model. It provides a peer-to-pool credit market that allows users to instantly issue unsecured USDC credit lines by linking Ethereum addresses and bank accounts, targeting traders, yield farmers, crypto companies, and even AI agents.

Unlike traditional lending agreements that require over-collateralization, 3Jane uses risk control based on " credit scores, verifiable proof of on-chain and off-chain assets and cash flows ". It no longer requires tying assets, maximizes capital efficiency, and expands the scope of credit objects.

(Learn more: 3Jane Protocol: Combining on-chain and traditional financial data to provide unsecured loan services based on credit assessment )

Paradigm leads $5.2 million seed round, with participation from Coinbase and Wintermute

3Jane announced in an official announcement that it has completed a $5.2 million seed round of financing led by well-known venture capital firm Paradigm, with participation from Wintermute Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. Angel investors include Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje, Ethena founder Guy Young, and Synthetix founder Kain Warwick.

Founder Jacob Chudnovsky said that although there have been attempts at unsecured credit in the past, most of them ended in failure due to the lack of mature credit assessment technology and legal claims mechanisms. Now, with the gradual maturity of zero-knowledge technology (such as zkTLS) and cross-chain asset integration tools, 3Jane believes that the time has come:

We plan to launch the mainnet in the third quarter of 2025, and will initially focus on the credit market in the United States with a cash flow of up to US$1.3 trillion, including credit lines, business advances, revenue loans and other models.

AI Agents become emerging borrowers? 3Jane targets the next generation of users

In addition to crypto-native traders and enterprises, 3Jane is also targeting an unprecedented user group: AI Agents .

Chudnovsky predicts that in the future, more and more companies will use AI agents to manage finances, execute instructions, or even be completely operated by agents. 3Jane's credit model can be further extended to such "non-human subjects" as loan objects, providing financial support for future automated companies:

Today we let agents operate finances under human guidance, but in the future people will directly evaluate the credit of agents.

( Is decentralized AI a fake topic? Dragonfly partner reveals the true intersection of AI and encryption: proxy micropayments )

If DeFi wants to truly grow, it must learn to “trust”

Unsecured lending has long been considered one of the most difficult areas to achieve in DeFi, and 3Jane attempts to achieve true "crypto-native credit" through cross-chain asset integration, credit score introduction, and legal mechanism reinforcement. As Chudnovsky bluntly said:

If DeFi is to become an internet-native financial system that does not rely on bank liquidity, it must develop a real credit mechanism.

As more data becomes available and models become more accurate, 3Jane is expected to become a pioneer in the DeFi credit market.