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

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

The Ethereum Foundation has set financial goals to reduce expenditures.

The Ethereum Foundation has established a clear asset and liability management framework, focusing on two major financial indicators: "Annual Operating Expenses (Opex)" and "Operating Reserve Fund Duration (Buffer)." Currently set at: Annual expenses account for 15% of the total treasury, with a reserve of 2.5 years of operating buffer.

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

Cryptocurrency asset deployment principles: security, prudence, support for the Ethereum ecosystem

The foundation takes a cautious approach to the operation of crypto assets, emphasizing the policy:

Prioritize protocols that have been tested in practice, require no permission, and are open source;

Prefer deployment strategies with high liquidity and controllable risks.

Only support projects with a moderate share of the total locked value (TVL) in the overall DeFi ecosystem.

The current deployment strategy includes solo staking and providing wETH to mainstream lending protocols. In the future, we will gradually integrate some audited DeFi yield products or on-chain RWAs (Real World Assets) into fiat asset allocation.

Fiat Asset Allocation: Three-Tier Structure to Enhance Liquidity and Stability

The foundation's fiat assets are divided into three levels:

Liquid assets: used for daily operations;

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

Tokenization of RWA: The strategies and risk management guidelines are the same as those for on-chain assets.

This structure helps maintain stable cash flow and performance capability in a volatile market.

Financial Transparency and Reporting System: Strengthening Internal Supervision and External Trust

The finance team of the foundation submits reports to the board of directors and management every quarter, covering:

Financial performance (including benchmark comparison performance);

All asset position changes;

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

In addition, an annual report will be published each year, detailing the allocation ratios of various assets, such as the proportion of fiat currency held, idle Ether, and deployed Ether, enhancing the understanding of the EF's financial situation among the community and partners.

Defipunk Vision: Privacy, Open Source, and Self-Sovereignty are Core.

EF will take "Defipunk" as the future development direction, which is an evaluation framework that continues the spirit of Cypherpunk and combines the values of Decentralized Finance. The key points are as follows:

Support open-source, secure, and trustless protocols;

Encourage the replacement of traditional trust mechanisms (such as multi-signature or legal contracts) with cryptographic technology;

Promote actual 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 encountering "sandwich attacks", liquidation sniping, or data extortion. The foundation urges the community and developers to re-examine design standards to prevent short-term design solutions during rapid growth from becoming long-term constraints.

Defipunk's practice: from internal operations to protocol support

EF stated that the spirit of Defipunk should "start from oneself," including:

Use and contribute to open source, privacy protection tools;

Encourage equal contributions from anonymous and pseudonymous participants;

Enhance the team's skills in cryptocurrency and decentralization tools.

In addition, EF has also established specific Defipunk evaluation criteria to screen whether the protocol is worth supporting, including whether it supports open access without KYC permissions, whether it emphasizes self-hosting, whether it is truly open source, and whether it has substantive privacy protection functions. EF used to support Ethereum primarily by holding ETH, but has now 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 a redefinition of EF's role as the core guardian of Ethereum—protecting not only the treasury but also the value.

This article discusses the Ethereum Foundation's announcement of a new treasury policy: actively allocating assets to promote the spirit of Defipunk and a privacy-first DeFi ecosystem, which first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.