Ethereum Foundation Suspected of Secretly Transferring 30,098 ETH, Community Members Dispute Claim

Controversy surrounded an Ethereum transaction, worth 30,098 ETH, when deposited into a lending platform called Sky, because many speculated that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) was secretly lending money to pay their bills. However, key members of the Ethereum team quickly dismissed the claims because an early Ethereum investor owned the wallet.

The deposit, worth around $56 million, raised some eyebrows, with some suggesting the Ethereum Foundation (EF) was raising liquidity through lending, avoiding the need to sell Ethereum tokens directly.

Eric Conner, an Ethereum community member, disputed the claims, reasoning that the Ethereum addresses used were not associated with the Ethereum Foundation (EF). The wallet address is more likely to belong to an early investor rather than a foundation member

The wallet address responsible for the confusion received a transfer from Ethereum Foundation’s (EF) ETH sale in 2022 and seems to be attempting to avoid liquidation by lending out tokens this week.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has been scrutinized lately for swapping ETH for stablecoins to pay salaries. The community suggests EF could borrow stablecoins to pay wages and repay loans with ETH.

Wu Blockchain, a Chinese newsletter, first pointed out the possibility of an EF transaction. However, Wu Blockchain followed up by saying that the wallet address was consistent with an investor’s actions rather than an EF member. One of the key features of the wallet was that it received a transfer from the EF Ethereum sale in 2022, a consistent pattern among investors.

“Correction: Although 0x22… Arkam flagged 1246 as a suspected Ethereum Foundation address”, wrote Wu Blockchain on X, “on-chain data confirms otherwise. While this address received a 4M DAI transfer from the Ethereum Foundation ETH Sale in May 2022, its transaction behavior and initial ETH funding trace back to jonny.eth (0xb76), indicating that it is more likely an early ETH investor rather than the Foundation itself. This address deposited 30,098 ETH into the MakerDAO vault today, with an outstanding debt position of 78,035,224.7182 DAI”.

Arkham Intelligence tagged the initial transfer of 30,098 ETH as “Ethereum structure?”, leading to speculation about the EF involvement with the wallet address.

Further, community members’ original suggestion to address the EF funding concerns was to borrow stablecoins against Ethereum using Aave. This is not far from what the current Ethereum investor was doing, although instead of Aave, the investor used a borrowing platform called Sky, borrowing DAI against Ethereum.

In February, the EF distributed around $120 million over Compound, Aave, and Spark lending platforms. The Ethereum community celebrated the move because they had suggested, after the funding debates, that EF should use lending platforms to pay salaries. Ethereum has continued to get involved with defi applications and, with current events, shows a more outstanding commitment to ensuring the security of DeFi in the near future.