Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, announced that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) uses technology called DVT-lite to stake 72,000 ETH from its treasury. The developer stated that his goal is for any institution to be able to do the same with “a single click” on the Ethereum network.
«The idea that ‘operating infrastructure’ is something complicated and scary where every participant must be a ‘professional’ is horrible and anti-decentralization, and we must attack it directly«, wrote the developer on March 9 in his X account.
The mechanism exposed by Vitalik, DVT-lite, is a simplified version of Distributed Validator Technology (DVT), which splits control of a validator across multiple computers located in different places, so that no single machine concentrates all the responsibility nor can, if it fails, interrupt the operation.
Thus, with DVT-lite, the Ethereum Foundation can distribute its validators among multiple operators in different jurisdictions, so that if one computer crashes, is hacked or goes offline, the others sustain the operation without interruptions and without putting locked funds at risk.
What Vitalik proposes and how he describes it
For Vitalik, distributed staking on Ethereum should work “like a Docker container,” a packaged software unit that is installed and runs identically on any computer without additional configuration.
In the developer’s vision, each staking computer would install that container, enter a shared key, and from there nodes would automatically find each otherthey would configure the network, complete the distributed key generation (DKG) cryptographic process, and initiate staking without additional human intervention.
That is the model that the co-founder of Ethereum aims to bring to institutions: that any organization that has ETH can do distributed staking without hiring specialized engineers or managing complex infrastructure, simply choosing which computers will run its nodes and executing a single command on each one.
The Ethereum Foundation already implements that model with its own treasury. According to a statement published on February 24, the EF chose two open source programs to build that architecture:
- Dirk– Acts as a distributed signer and divides the responsibility of signing transactions between multiple operators in different geographic jurisdictions, eliminating the single point of failure that exists when a single server controls a validator.
- Vouch– Manages multiple pairs of network clients simultaneously, reducing the risk that a bug or vulnerability in a single client will affect the entire operation.
The result is that the Foundation’s 72,000 ETH generate native yield in ETH, directly financing its research operations, protocol development and ecosystem grants, without the need to sell ETH from the treasury to cover expenses.
That the Foundation itself is exposed to the same risks and operational frictions as any staker is, according to the statement, a deliberate decision to set a transparency standard.
What other staking options exist?
First of all, traditional solo staking is the most decentralized form: it requires locking a minimum of 32 ETH (currently $64,000), operating your own node with a stable connection, and assuming full technical management. It offers full control over the funds and captures full performance, but its barrier to entry, both economic and technical, puts it out of reach for most users.
Secondly, liquid or pool staking, through protocols like Lido, eliminates the 32 ETH minimum and technical complexity. The user deposits any amount of ETH and receive a performance token in exchange which represents your stake and can be used in other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. The counterpart is that the user delegates the operation of the validators to third parties, introducing smart contract risks and concentration of power in a few hands.
A third variant is staking through centralized exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance. This is the simplest option for non-technical users: the exchange manages everything and the user only deposits their ETH.
It is the most accessible model but also the most centralizedsince the exchange custody the funds and operates the validators, which directly contradicts the decentralization goal that Vitalik describes.
Ethereum staking today: growing trend
The Ethereum staking ecosystem currently records 37.3 million ETH locked, equivalent to 30.7% of the total supply and to 74.6 billion dollars.
The more ETH is locked in staking, the network becomes more secure and resistant to attacks. However, if this growing participation is concentrated in a few large operators, the network gains security against external attacks but loses resistance to censorship. It is precisely that tension that Vitalik seeks to resolve by making distributed staking more accessible to institutions.