Key Highlights
- The Ethereum Foundation has started staking 72,000 ETH by using a new technology called DVT-lite.
- By doing this, they want to make staking more secure and easier for institutions.
- Vitalik Buterin criticized the industry for making staking infrastructure too complicated.
On March 9, Vitalik Buterin shared a post on X (formerly Twitter), where he revealed that the Ethereum Foundation has started staking 72,000 ETH using a lighter version of Distributed Validator Technology, as DVT-lite.
Ethereum Foundation Aims for Simpler Distributed Staking
In a post on X, the Ethereum co-founder has criticized how the industry currently uses staking infrastructure. He mentioned the largely prevailing mindset that “running infrastructure” must be a scary, complicated task requiring professional expertise as “awful and anti-decentralization.” He thinks that the community must attack it directly.
In the post, he stated that, “My hope for this project is that in the process, we can make it maximally easy and one-click to do distributed staking for institutions. Choose which computers run your nodes, make a config file where they all have the same key, and then from there, everything gets set up automatically.”
According to Buterin, the user experience would be simple enough for non-specialists. A simple Docker container or Nix image would require just one command per node. After entering the same key, the nodes would automatically identify each other, handle the networking setup, and complete the Distributed Key Generation process. Also, it should begin staking without manual intervention.
Buterin stated that he plans to use the system personally soon. He expressed hope that more institutions holding ETH would follow in his footsteps. He said, “I also plan to use this soon, and I hope more institutions holding ETH can stake in this way. We want the authority over staking nodes to be highly distributed, and the first step to doing this is to make it easy.”
This post comes after the Ethereum Foundation’s February 2026 decision to stake up to 70,000 ETH from its treasury as a way to support ongoing network development. Currently, roughly 37 million ETH are staked on the network, which is around 31% of the total supply.
The technical reason behind DVT-lite involves splitting validator keys across multiple machines, which helps reduce the risks of slashing penalties and downtime while keeping the setup process simple enough for those without great knowledge.
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