According to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, the Ethereum Foundation has moved 160,000 ETH (roughly $654 million) to a wallet that has been used for selling Ether in the past. This huge transfer by the foundation has been a topic of discussion about its financial operations and transparency of the foundation on social media.
According to Arkham on X (formerly Twitter), the recipient wallet has been making large transfers to big exchanges and selling addresses. “This wallet has only made significant transfers to: Kraken Deposit SharpLink Gaming [and] a multisig that sells ETH,” the company informed. Crypto watchers quickly responded to the announcement, questioning the reason and timing of the move.
In an answer to the rumors, Hsiao-Wei Wang, co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, wrote on social media that the handoff was a “scheduled wallet migration” and that there were no sales activities involved. Wang pointed out that the foundation is constantly moving its assets as part of its security and treasury management measures.”.
Even after this explanation, Arkham’s post ignited a debate on the internet about the foundation’s spending and operations that was going on parallel to the scrutiny. The Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Switzerland, that is responsible for the development and ecosystem support of Ethereum, has been receiving so many demands for financial transparency while it continues to be the custodian of a large treasury of ETH.
The debate got louder after the remarks of Péter Szilágyi, the ex-lead developer of Geth, Ethereum’s most commonly used client. Szilágyi brought back a letter that he had sent to the foundation last year, in which he accused the foundation of internal favoritism and that contributors outside the organization’s core circle had limited opportunities.
He further mentioned that during his six years at the foundation, his total pay was only about $625,000 while the market value of Ethereum went up to hundreds of billions in the same period. This revelation caused different kinds of reactions on the internet; some members of the community took side with Szilágyi and his statements regarding the fairness of the compensation and governance.
In recent months, the Ethereum Foundation has implemented internal restructuring measures, including a round of developer layoffs and new policies for managing its remaining ETH reserves and funding allocations.
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