- The Ethereum Foundation has published a new DeFi-focused treasury policy
- It seeks to use the policy to reduce the foundation’s expenses and increase its scrutiny of DeFi platforms it intends to deposit treasury funds
- The move comes a few days after restructuring its research and development department
A month after depositing $120 million into DeFi platforms, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has published a new DeFi-centric treasury policy. The policy aims to establish the criteria for depositing treasury funds into DeFi platforms and assist the foundation in reducing its annual expenses by 66% within the next five years. The foundation also intends to use the policy to increase interaction with the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, a move that comes a few days after borrowing $2 million from Aave, indicating that the foundation is committed to exploring the DeFi space.
Using Cypherpunk Principles in DeFi
According to the EF, the DeFi-focused policy is part of its cypherpunk goals, which it said are meant to “build on cypherpunk principles to help formalize and apply a practical evaluation framework [known] as Defipunk.”
Announcing the Ethereum Foundation Treasury Policyhttps://t.co/bU566m1zX5
— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) June 4, 2025
The foundation noted that applying cypherpunk principles in the DeFi world requires DeFi protocols to focus on security, financial sovereignty, and privacy, among other properties. It added that it’ll actively support projects “in their Defipunk journey.”
It said it’ll be among the first to employ the Defipunk principles in its treasury management. Part of the way it intends to use the principles is by creating a “prudent operational structure” that supports qualified contributors, including anonymous and pseudonymous participants.
The foundation disclosed that it’ll also consider these principles when depositing treasury funds into DeFi platforms. Qualifying protocols must be, among other things, permissionless, support self-custody, and use free-libre and open-source licenses.
More Policies Unveiled
Apart from the Defipunk policy, the foundation also unveiled a macro policy that will help it maintain an “asset-liability management policy and a high-level grant allocation strategy.” Its crypto assets policy defines the acceptable returns on invested funds, while its fiat-denominated assets policy and transparency policy touch on how to use fiat holdings to pay bills and improve transparency, respectively.
The new policies come shortly after the foundation overhauled its leadership structure and unveiled a trillion-dollar security initiative. It also recently revealed plans to address Ethereum’s scaling challenges.
With the foundation releasing new policies, it’s to be seen how the policies will improve its connection with the DeFi ecosystem.
