Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin Reveals Salary Amid Growing Foundation Scrutiny

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Tuesday that the Ethereum Foundation pays him an annual salary of around $140,000, as the organization centered around Ethereum’s developers and researchers prepares a new spending report amid public scrutiny of its budget.

The Canadian programmer helped establish the Swiss-based nonprofit in 2014, which supports Ethereum’s ecosystem through research, grants, and events. Regarded as one of the crypto industry’s centric visionaries, Buterin sits on the Ethereum Foundation’s executive board alongside two other members, who help guide the organization’s initiatives. 

Buterin disclosed his salary on Twitter (aka X) while sharing a snippet of an upcoming report, which breaks down the Ethereum Foundation’s spending through 2022 and 2023. Buterin divulged his salary in the form of Singapore dollars, totaling 182,000 in the nation’s currency—about $140,000 worth in U.S. dollars.

The Ethereum Foundation describes itself as “part of a larger community of organizations and individuals that fund protocol development” on its website. Notably, the organization has maintained since its inception that it does not own or control Ethereum’s network. 

Buterin’s disclosure comes amid newfound scrutiny toward the Ethereum Foundation’s current use of funds. Last week, questions emerged after the Ethereum Foundation moved about $94 million worth of ETH to crypto exchange Kraken, after which Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi revealed the organization’s budget via a tweet.

“[The Ethereum Foundation] has a budget of ~$100m per year, which is largely made up of grants and salaries,” Miyaguchi wrote. “This year, there was a long period of time when we were advised not to do any treasury activities due to the regulatory complications.”

Earlier this year, the Ethereum Foundation indicated that it was being investigated by a “state authority.” A lawsuit brought by the blockchain software company Consensys later claimed that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was investigating Ethereum.

While Consensys claimed the investigation was dropped in June without charges being brought, the SEC sued Consensys later that month, alleging the firm violated securities laws through its MetaMask wallet's Swaps and Staking services. (Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 strategic investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.)

The Ethereum Foundation’s most recent spending report was released in 2022, and it found the organization spent $48 million the previous year. The report also stated that the Ethereum Foundation’s treasury was worth around $1.6 billion, with crypto assets contributing $1.3 billion of that tally.

On Tuesday, Josh Stark, who works for the Ethereum Foundation, addressed “some of the big questions” around the organization's spending on Twitter. At the same time, he said a full report on the nonprofit’s use of funds would be released in the coming months.

In his posts, Stark drew a line between the Ethereum Foundation’s internal spending across several research teams and the organization's external spending, which mostly takes the form of grants. Among those projects that receive allocations are ones that can “strengthen and support the Ethereum ecosystem in the long run,” Stark said.

While Buterin’s brainchild has a market capitalization of $310 billion, his salary is quite small compared to other recognizable names in the crypto space. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, for example, received $4.7 million in total compensation in 2023, according to an SEC filing.

Still, Buterin’s wealth has been bolstered by Ethereum’s rise. The crypto analytics firm Nansen estimated in April that Buterin’s net worth exceeded $1 billion. However, Nansen noted that the figure was found through on-chain data, excluding undisclosed assets like cash and real estate.

Today, Buterin’s on-chain holdings are valued at around $632 million, according to data on the crypto analytics platform Arkham. Of that figure, over 99% of his portfolio’s value stemmed from Ethereum, with a holding of 241,000 ETH.

Edited by Andrew Hayward