Vitalik Buterin Converts Meme Coins Into Ethereum for Charity Support

• Vitalik Buterin sold meme coins received via airdrops, converting them into 140.6 ETH and donating a portion to charity.
• Buterin’s donation supports the legal defense of Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again caught the attention of the crypto world by selling a large amount of meme coins and USDT that he acquired through an airdrop.

In the latest transaction, according to Spotonchain, Buterin exchanged meme coins such as MOODENG, DEGEN, Neiro, and Kabosu, as well as stablecoin USDT, for a total of around 140.6 ETH, or around $340,000.

Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) just sold $341K worth of meme-coins #MOODENG, $DEGEN, $NEIRO, $KABOSU, and stablecoin $USDT for 140.67 $ETH in the past 30 minutes.

At the same time, he also sent 100 $ETH ($242K) to the “Free Alexey & Roman” campaign, supporting the legal… pic.twitter.com/XYjf2ZVI8g

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) October 5, 2024

Vitalik Buterin Donation of 100 ETH Following Meme Coin Sale 

The transaction was completed in a short time, taking just 30 minutes. After selling the coins, Vitalik donated 100 ETH (around $242,000) to the “Free Alexey & Roman” campaign, a movement that supports the legal defense of the embattled Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.

Vitalik’s decision to sell the coins was in line with the response from the developers of the tokens he sold. The MOODENG development team, for example, hopes that the proceeds from their token sale can be used for charitable purposes.

While Buterin has not commented directly on his move, it has prompted discussion among the crypto community about the intentions behind the transaction. Some crypto projects see this as an opportunity to add value, such as in the case of MOODENG, which still has 50 billion tokens left in Vitalik’s wallet, worth more than $1 million.

In addition to the sale of this meme coin, Buterin also moved 649 ETH to Paxos a few days earlier, worth $1.79 million.

Large transactions like this usually affect the price of Ether on the market, although the impact is sometimes not immediately felt. Ethereum itself is currently trading at $2,429.77, experiencing a slight increase of 0.36% over the last 24 hours.

Interestingly, Vitalik’s activity has also triggered an increase in the value of several meme coins that he sold. Neiro, one of the meme coins he sold, experienced a significant price increase of up to 200% after previously dropping 60% when Buterin sold the token.

This shows how much influence influential people like Buterin have on the volatility of the crypto market, especially in the meme coin sector, which is indeed very speculative.

Prior to this latest news, a CNF report noted that on-chain activity for one of Buterin’s token sales, DEGEN, had nearly doubled, reflecting increased participation in DeFi projects, NFTs, and meme coins. The Degen Chain ecosystem, which focuses on a community-driven model and integration with decentralized platforms, is growing rapidly.

On the other hand, as we previously highlighted, Vitalik Buterin praised Celo for outperforming Tron in terms of daily active stablecoin transactions. Celo managed to outpace Tron thanks to applications like MiniPay and Valora that are widely used in the African market.