Feist Urges $1B ETH-Aligned Entity Funded by Staking

Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher, proposed building a new ETH-aligned organization with at least $1 billion in funding. He said the group should receive a permanent stream of staking revenue and be accountable to ether holders. Feist posted the proposal on X.

In his post Feist listed four requirements: at least $1 billion in credible funding; a leader prepared to defend protocol interests; a board explicitly answerable to ether holders; and a permanent staking income stream. He framed $1 billion as reasonable for an ecosystem with a roughly $257 billion market value and wrote that a governance mechanism should allow the staking allocation to be adjusted over time.

Feist proposed routing staking rewards into the organization on a permanent basis so the group’s incentives would track ETH’s price performance rather than depend on periodic grants or selling assets. He wrote that forming broad consensus may take time and described the plan as “the only way.” He also posted, “The community needs to create an organisation that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it.”

Feist left the Ethereum Foundation and joined Tempo, a blockchain project backed by Stripe focused on stablecoins. His exit was among at least eight senior departures from the Foundation in 2026, five of them in May, which preceded a core team overhaul earlier this year.

The Ethereum Foundation holds less than 0.1% of all ETH and does not collect staking or transaction fee revenue. Its treasury contains about 92,548 ETH, a balance that has declined after asset sales to cover operating costs. In February 2026 the Foundation launched a staking initiative targeting 70,000 ETH intended to generate native yield without reducing the treasury balance.

ETH is trading near $2,126, down roughly 57% from a peak above $4,900 last year. Feist linked the price decline to his proposal, arguing an organization funded by ETH-linked income would have incentives aligned with the asset’s long-term value. Questions remain about how to assemble the initial capital, who would lead the entity and how a board could be structured to answer to ether holders.