Vitalik: Ethereum Foundation enters a "mild austerity period," has withdrawn 16,384 ETH for long-term core missions

According to Odaily, Vitalik Buterin posted on X stating that in the next five years, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) will enter a period of "moderate tightening" to achieve two major goals:

First, to deliver a more ambitious technical roadmap, ensuring that Ethereum continues to be a high-performance, scalable "world computer" without sacrificing robustness, sustainability, and decentralization;

Second, to enhance the Ethereum Foundation's own long-term sustainability, safeguarding Ethereum's core mission, including the foundational blockchain layer and users' ability to use the network with security, privacy, and self-sovereignty.

Vitalik pointed out that as part of the tightening plan, he will personally take on some work that might otherwise be handled by the Foundation's "special projects," with a focus on supporting an open, verifiable, end-to-end software and hardware technology stack to protect personal life and the public environment. This technological vision covers areas such as finance, communications, governance, blockchain, operating systems, secure hardware, biotechnology (personal and public health), and emphasizes privacy protection, decentralization, and local-first software architecture.

To this end, Vitalik has withdrawn 16,384 ETH and plans to gradually invest it in the above goals over the coming years, while also exploring more secure decentralized staking solutions so that staking yields can be used long-term to support these missions.

He emphasized that Ethereum itself is an indispensable part of the "full-stack openness and verifiability" vision. The Ethereum Foundation will continue to focus on Ethereum core development, but the priority is not "Ethereum everywhere," but rather "Ethereum for people who need it," meaning serving self-sovereignty, security, and privacy, rather than catering to the needs of centralized enterprises.

Vitalik stated that in a world increasingly advocating "the strong dominate the strong," this path provides a necessary alternative—building an unconstrained collaborative infrastructure through truly open, verifiable, and user-serving technology.