Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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It is frankly really hard to be the Ethereum Foundation.



Your job is to fund public goods R&amp;D and ship complex network upgrades. But that means you’re also constantly choosing between selling ETH and being yelled at for selling ETH.



The EF has a staff of about 200 employees and an annual operating budget of ~$145 million. That money comes from a treasury of largely ETH. That ETH needs to be sold to pay your staff, but ETH holders dislike when you sell the thing they own. This is crypto’s most uniquely recurring theme: “Please make number go up, while also paying for things with the number.”



So the Crypto Twitter peanut gallery wants the EF to know they can simply “use DeFi.” Put the ETH in a lending vault, collect yield and stop wrecking the ETH chart, please.



The EF has historically been reluctant to do that for obvious reasons: It is not the job of a neutral ecosystem steward to be making complex risk management decisions.



Yet, yesterday the Ethereum Foundation doubled down on its use of DeFi (a <a href="https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1889978208986280031">continuation</a> since February). The EF deposited 2400 ETH ($9.1 million) and $6 million of stablecoins into Morpho’s vaults.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">0/ Today, the Ethereum Foundation deposited 2400 ETH and ~$6M stablecoins into Morpho’s yield-bearing vaults. Morpho is a pioneer in permissionless DeFi protocols and consistently demonstrates a commitment to Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) principles.&mdash; Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) <a href="https://twitter.com/ethereumfndn/status/1978460652877267301?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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This should be good news for bagholders, but not everyone is happy:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="798" height="175" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109201" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=798 798w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-55.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px" /></figure>



Where previously the Ethereum Foundation wasn’t supporting its own ecosystem, now it’s not supporting the right players, i.e. the smaller guys and underdogs.



I don’t know, man. You can’t seem to please everyone, so maybe these decisions simply shouldn’t be public.&nbsp;



You could imagine a world where the EF tries to be “fair.” It allocates capital to smaller projects, but that exposes the foundation to a wider range of smart contract/security risks.&nbsp;



Best case scenario: Nothing breaks but the foundation’s operating expenses are inflated to pay for security researchers and an investment team. Fairness is expensive. Worst case: Protocols get exploited and the EF’s treasury runway is shortened.



Solana doesn’t seem to have the same problems, namely because its foundation isn’t committed to the same levels of radical transparency as Ethereum is. Solana is selling SOL too, presumably, but no one’s upset because it’s not on the Twitter timeline.



For starters, the foundation has actively backed the Solmate DAT, and has an active partnership with the “Solana Company” DAT (previously Helius Medical). The EF has <a href="https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1943642682825523320">sold</a> ETH in OTC sales to DATs, but has not participated in any formal investments or partnerships with DATs.



Solana DATs, too, have been unabashedly proud about using DeFi. Forward Industries’ Kyle Samani wants Forward to be the most “natively onchain publicly traded company in the world,” he said on an <a href="https://youtu.be/1NQENVL4n4c">Empire</a> podcast, teasing the use of SOL in select Solana protocols.



Ethereum’s commitment to neutrality is admirable (remember when Justin Drake had to <a href="https://x.com/drakefjustin/status/1852734263541874824">step down</a> as an advisor to Eigenlayer for violating that tenet?).



But no one in Solana world seems to have a problem with that, so maybe the foundation’s optimal strategy is to do the low-profile, risk-minimized thing and announce as little of it as possible.



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Digital asset treasuries

Running a blockchain foundation is actually really tough

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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In July, we saw over $6 billion go into funding, a pretty big increase in comparison to June, according to Blockworks Research data.&nbsp;



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Look at the itty-bitty June bar in comparison to July&nbsp;



Of that $6 billion, roughly $177 million came from M&amp;A activity. To break that down further: 96 raise announcements were made in comparison to just 12 M&amp;A announcements. Both June and May saw 10 or fewer M&amp;A announcements, it did pick up ever so slightly.&nbsp;



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To give you a better idea of the breakdown



If we look at TIE data, which included <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfPMvCtU7PQ">Digital Asset Treasury</a> company raises, then we can also gauge what stage of raises were the most popular last month.&nbsp;



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Source: The TIE Terminal



With the rise of the Digital Asset Treasury companies, there is a decent amount of post-IPO equity being raised. But, excluding DATs, most raise announcements were either seed rounds or Series A rounds.&nbsp;



Let’s break down venture funding further: Coinbase Ventures was one of the most active investors in the last month, participating in 21 rounds.&nbsp;



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To put all of this in perspective, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/venture-capital-funding-up-in-june">June saw a bit of a comeback in funding</a> after a very slow May, and it looks like July is yet again showing another pick up.&nbsp;



Last month also outpaced March, which had been the most successful month since 2021 based on Blockworks Research data, which goes to show how large the appetite is. Currently, DATs clearly reign supreme if we’re looking at total fundraising.&nbsp;



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Source: TIE Terminal



Payments, however, also saw a decent amount of activity. As did DeFi (which was the second most popular category in June for fundraising).&nbsp;



Here’s my take: DATs are the hot item of the moment, and it shows in the data. However, I’m curious to see if they can continue this momentum into August (which, like the summer months, tends to be seasonally weak) or if we’ll see a slight decline next month.&nbsp;



But overall, the data looks pretty strong at this point, and we didn’t even really touch on just how successful crypto IPOs have been.



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