Ethereum R1 will rely entirely on ETH donations from the public to support its development and operations

Quotes that support claims

What is Ethereum R1? Fully donation-funded — no token, no private sales. Just ETH contributions from the public. Stage 2 from day one — permissionless proving, long upgrade delay period with a huge set of multisig with broad representation across the Ethereum ecosystem. Ethereum public good — Proportion of base fees go to R&D and app dev until 2030 — then they’re burned. Replaceable by design — no proprietary governance, no branding lock-in, no cult of personality. This is a rollup that belongs to Ethereum, not to a foundation, not to insiders, not to us.

According to the announcement, the project relies entirely on donations, does not have venture funding, and does not have any pre-mined token allocations or a governance token. The project's team wrote in a May 1 X post: