Ethereum Foundation makes its biggest pitch to governments yet

The Ethereum Foundation released a policy guide, outlining that Ethereum is to be classified as a neutral public infrastructure where both governments and institutions can turn for their needs. This could affect how all regulators around the world may see and interact with all public blockchains in general, and particularly with the tokens that operate on these public blockchains in the future.

This policy was prepared by the Ethereum Foundation Global Policy Strategy Team. It positions Ethereum as a decentralized alternative to the centralized digital systems that many governments currently rely on to conduct payments, verify identity, and store records. The document notes that there is a growing requirement for governments and institutions to have access to “shared, neutral digital public infrastructure,” which is becoming increasingly required due to global pressures – whether related to geopolitics, finance, or technology.

The Foundation describes Ethereum as an infrastructure that is “not controlled by any organization, individual, or state.” Similar to the fundamental technology of the Internet, Ethereum’s protocol is “open, programmable, and globally accessible”. For the cryptocurrency market, this is a significant shift in branding from having been a financial investment (the second-largest public blockchain by market capitalization) to now positioning itself as foundational public digital infrastructure which supports fundamental digital infrastructure services.

Ethereum points to $76B security moat

According to the foundation, centralized digital infrastructure has a single point of failure. Therefore, there may be a large group of cyberattacks, outages, and political pressures that can take down an entire system, or limit access to it. In contrast, since the launch of Ethereum in 2015, it’s been running continuously without interruption. Reports suggest that there are no other major blockchain offers this level of assurance.

According to OpenZeppelin, as of March 2026, there are approximately $76 billion in staked ETH securing the Ethereum network. This means that it would cost approximately $50.7 billion to finalize a fraudulent transaction, not including automatic slashing penalties, to commit fraud against the network. In contrast, other layer-1 blockchains that were reviewed (Binance Smart Chain, XRP Ledger, Tron, Solana, and Canton) had between one and seven outages, and had very little in the way of economic deterrents to attack.

The guide attributes Ethereum’s high level of resiliency to its governance model being decentralized. “Ethereum is a decentralized ecosystem that functions through the activity of a large, diverse, and global group of stakeholders. That breadth of participation is one of the things that makes Ethereum so secure, which in turn is what makes it the top choice for institutions, enterprises, and the public sector.”

The validator set of the Ethereum network is globally distributed across nations and legal systems, with no single nation’s validators having a large percentage of the total validator set. Anyone with a standard desktop computer and 32 ETH can participate as a validator in Ethereum, which the report describes as being far below the barriers of complexity imposed by other networks, which require enterprise-grade hardware and extensive systems administration experience.

Governments already experimenting

The guide highlights sovereign governments that have started implementing Ethereum-based solutions. Argentina and Bhutan have established decentralized identity schemes on the Ethereum blockchain, while Indian authorities are testing land registries using Ethereum to help decrease the risk of fraud when transferring property.

The foundation encourages lawmakers to come to a definition that separates public blockchains that anyone can use from those that an individual company or, in many cases, an organization controls. The OpenZeppelin report analyzed a public blockchain where an organization controlled about 42% of the token supply and had a large impact on which validators they select and their node list, traits that institutions would typically need to disclose and mitigate against in order to manage their risk.

Foundation targets govts and institutions

Timing is everything! There has just been a major, structural reorganization by the foundation resulting in approximately 20% of the workforce being cut and the creation of the “institutional layer” cluster whose sole purpose is to create engagement with financial institutions, enterprise organizations, and government entities. A separate nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, also launched this week with backing from key ecosystem participants.

Both of these actions represent coordinated actions taken by the Ethereum ecosystem and its participants. The creation of the policy guide is also part of this overall strategy to provide readers with clear and balanced, evidence-based materials to help them assess Ethereum’s potential for providing utility to their respective governmental and institutional organizations. If governmental entities begin using public blockchain technology as foundational infrastructure, then the regulatory clarity generated would speed up the pace of institutional or financial commitment to the broader digital currency market and not just Ethereum.

In addition, the way that the Foundation has positioned its document as it relates to its competitive position should not be overlooked. The guide cites independent security audits and uptime data as opposed to corporate-backed layer-1 providers with a validator set controlled by foundations. These types of entities would subject themselves to a much more rigorous regulatory scrutiny, under the framework set forth in the policy guide.

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