The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization supporting Ethereum development, has begun staking a portion of its treasury to generate network rewards. The initiative uses open source infrastructure developed and maintained by Bitwise Onchain Solutions, an institutional staking infrastructure provider.
Bitwise Asset Management, a global crypto asset management company with more than $15 billion under management, said its on-chain division is responsible for maintaining the tools used in its staking program. First transaction included 2,016 deposits $ETH. The foundation plans to increase that amount over time to approximately 70,000 $ETHis worth more than $140 million at current market prices.
The staking infrastructure relies on two open source tools: Dirk and Vouch. Both were originally created by Attestant, an Ethereum staking infrastructure development company that was acquired by Bitwise in 2024. This software was designed to meet institutional security and reliability standards.
Dirk acts as a decentralized signer that allows validator operations to be performed across multiple jurisdictions. This structure reduces the risk of a single operational failure disrupting validation activities. Vouch focuses on client diversity by supporting several validator client combinations and strategies aimed at reducing risk across the network.
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