Ethereum Foundation puts ETH to work
The Ethereum Foundation redeployed 3,400 ETH (~$7.5M) into the Morpho lending protocol, including 1,000 ETH into Morpho Vaults V2—marking a shift from selling treasury ETH to active on‑chain yield management. The move sets a precedent for protocol treasuries using DeFi as a yield and risk management tool rather than fiat conversion. (thedefiant.io)
The redeployment follows an earlier October 15, 2025 allocation in which the Foundation placed 2,400 ETH plus roughly $6 million in stablecoins into Morpho vaults. (cryptobriefing.com). The Foundation’s June 4, 2025 Treasury Policy introduced a “Defipunk” screening rubric requiring free/libre open‑source licensing, permissionless access, and immutability as deployment preconditions. (blog.ethereum.org). That policy also set financial guardrails including a 2.5‑year operating buffer and an initial 15% annual opex cap to govern ETH sales and on‑chain deployments. (coindesk.com). Morpho’s Vaults V2 went live on September 29, 2025 and its core VaultV2 contracts are deployed immutable and published under GPL‑2.0 on the project’s GitHub and blog. ( ). Morpho Vaults V2 received pre‑launch audits and pressure‑testing from Sherlock and Blackthorn, which the protocol cited when marketing the immutable V2 standard. (sherlock.xyz). Taken together with the October commitment, the Foundation’s Morpho exposure now totals 5,800 ETH plus about $6 million in stablecoins, a sum reporters have valued at just under $19 million to date. ( ). Morpho’s on‑chain footprint sits in the multibillion‑dollar range — third‑party trackers show protocol TVL around $6.0B — and Morpho has secured institutional arrangements referenced in market coverage, including an Apollo acquisition framework for MORPHO tokens. ( ). Under the EF’s Defipunk filters (no admin keys, true open‑source licensing), Morpho is the only protocol the Foundation has backed twice under the new policy, a distinction flagged in press coverage of the latest deployment. (en.cryptonomist.ch).
