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Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently offloaded billions in meme coins. This has brought back memories of how Buterin handled the Shiba Inu tokens that SHIB’s founder Ryoshi sent to him back in 2021.
On-chain analytics platform Onchain Lens revealed in an X post that the Ethereum founder had sold 150 billion PUPPIES for 28.58 ETH ($114,480) and 1 billion ERC20 for $13,889 USDC. These are tokens that Vitalik received for free, as meme coin teams and the community are known for sending coins to the Ethereum founder.
This practice dates to as far back as 2021, when the Shiba Inu founder Ryoshi sent 500 trillion SHIB tokens, which represented half of the meme coin’s total supply. The Ethereum founder famously burned 450 trillion coins by sending them to a dead wallet, while he donated the remaining 50 trillion coins to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic at the time.
Since then, Vitalik has adopted a similar approach for every meme coin he receives. The Ethereum founder usually sells these coins and then donates the proceeds to charity. He had mentioned last year that he would truly prefer if these coins were sent directly to charity. Vitalik further advised community members to consider setting up a DAO and getting community members directly involved in decision-making.
The Ethereum founder added that the best thing for meme coins is if they can be maximally positive-sum for the world, and that it will be great to see moments when that actually happens. However, these transfers to Vitalik are often viewed as a means for these meme coins to increase their visibility.
Vitalik’s move with the SHIB tokens undoubtedly contributed to putting Shiba Inu in the spotlight. He burned those tokens just as the meme coin went on its legendary run in 2021, reaching its current all-time high (ATH) of $0.00008845 in the process.
Arkham data shows that the Ethereum founder still has more meme coins in his pubic wallet, which he received from community members. His largest meme coin holding is currently Moodeng, which he holds 30 billion coins worth $518,000. Meanwhile, his largest crypto holding in value remains ETH. Vitalik holds 240,000 ETH worth just over $1 billion.
The Ethereum founder regained his on-chain billionaire status following ETH’s break above $4,000 last month. ETH eventually reached a new ATH in the process, which caused Vitalik’s wealth to surge briefly. However, the largest altcoin is currently struggling to hold above the psychological $4,000 level amid the recent crypto market downtrend.
At the time of writing, the Ethereum price is trading at around $4,200, up over 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
