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In summary
- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has revealed that the Ethereum Foundation pays him an annual salary of around $140,000.
- Buterin shared this information on Twitter while presenting a snippet of an upcoming Ethereum Foundation spending report.
- The Ethereum Foundation has been under public scrutiny for its budget and recently transferred $94 million worth of ETH to Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Tuesday that the Ethereum Foundation pays him an annual salary of around $140,000, as the organization focused on Ethereum developers and researchers prepares a new expense report amid public scrutiny of its budget.
The Canadian programmer helped establish the Switzerland-based nonprofit in 2014, which supports the Ethereum ecosystem through research, grants, and events. Regarded as one of the cryptocurrency industry’s core visionaries, Buterin sits on the Ethereum Foundation’s executive board alongside two other members, who help guide the organization’s initiatives.
Buterin revealed his salary on Twitter (aka X) while sharing a snippet of an upcoming report, which details the Ethereum Foundation’s expenses through 2022 and 2023. Buterin revealed that his salary is 182,000 SGD, the national currency of Singapore, which is roughly equivalent to $140,000 in US dollars.
The Ethereum Foundation describes itself on its website as “part of a broader community of organizations and individuals funding the development of the protocol.” Importantly, the organization has maintained since its inception that it does not own or control the Ethereum network.
Buterin’s disclosure comes amid renewed attention to the Ethereum Foundation’s current use of funds. Last week, questions arose after the Ethereum Foundation transferred roughly $94 million worth of ETH to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, after which Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi revealed the organization’s budget via a tweet.
“(The Ethereum Foundation) has a budget of ~$100M per year, which is largely comprised of grants and salaries,” Miyaguchi wrote. “This year, there was a long period of time where we were advised not to engage in treasury activities due to regulatory complications.”
Earlier this year, the Ethereum Foundation indicated that it was being investigated by a “state authority.” Later, a lawsuit filed by Blockchain software firm Consensys claimed that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was investigating Ethereum.
While Consensys claimed the investigation was closed in June without filing charges, the SEC sued Consensys later that month, alleging the firm violated securities laws through its MetaMask wallet’s exchange and staking services. (Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 strategic investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.
The Ethereum Foundation’s most recent spending report was published in 2022, and found that the organization spent $48 million in the previous year. The report also stated that the Ethereum Foundation’s treasury was worth around $1.6 billion, with crypto assets contributing $1.3 billion of that figure.
On Tuesday, Josh Stark, who works for the Ethereum Foundation, addressed “some of the big questions” about the organization’s spending on Twitter. At the same time, he said that a full report on the nonprofit’s use of funds would be published in the coming months.
1. First, we’ve been working on a new EF report, covering 2022 and 2023. We’re expecting to publish it before Devcon SEA.
Here’s a preview of spend information from the upcoming report (exact figures TBD). pic.twitter.com/jicVHOy5r7
— Josh Stark (@0xstark) August 27, 2024
In his posts, Stark drew a line between the Ethereum Foundation’s internal spending on various research teams and the organization’s external spending, which mostly comes in the form of grants. Among those projects receiving allocations are those that can “strengthen and support the Ethereum ecosystem in the long run,” Stark said.
While Buterin’s creation has a market cap of $310 billion, his salary is quite small compared to other well-known names in the crypto space. For example, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong received $4.7 million in total compensation in 2023, according to an SEC filing.
Buterin’s wealth has been bolstered by the rise of Ethereum, however. Cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen estimated Buterin’s fortune at more than $1 billion in April. However, it also noted that the figure was derived through on-chain data, excluding undisclosed assets such as cash and real estate.
Today, Buterin’s on-chain holdings are valued at around $632 million, according to data on cryptocurrency analytics platform Arkham. Of that figure, over 99% of his portfolio’s value comes from Ethereum, with a holding of 241,000 ETH.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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