Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Donates Over $1 Billion in Crypto To Indian COVID Relief Fund

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Donates Over $1 Billion in Crypto To Indian COVID Relief Fund
on May 13, 2021

Popular cryptocurrency Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin has donated over $1 billion (roughly Rs 7,358 crores) in cryptocurrency to the India COVID Relief Fund and a range of other charities, a report in Forbes said today. Buterin made the donation by offloading massive amounts of dog-themed meme tokens, which were gifted to him by the creators of the Shiba Inu coin, Dogelon, and Akita Inu. These cryptocurrencies have shot up in value since Dogecoin’s rally that came in the last few months. Buterin’s donation comes soon after he became the world’s youngest cryptocurrency billionaire less than two weeks ago.

According to the report in Forbes, Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB tokens worth $1.2 billion (roughly Rs 8,800 crores) on May 12, 16:37 pm ET to the India Covid Relief Fund in a single transaction. The COVID Relief Fund has been set up by Indian tech entrepreneur Sandeep Nailwal, who is also the co-founder and COO of Polygon. Earlier, in April, Buterin donated about $600,000 (roughly Rs 4.41 crores) in ether and maker tokens to the India COVID Relief Fund. Nailwal took to Twitter to thank Buterin. He said that the funds will be spent responsibly. “We will not do anything which hurts any community specially the retail community involved with SHIB, Nailwal said.

   

The Forbes report also points out that the Shiba Inu tokens were given to Buterin on the premise that he would never sell them. Developers of the Shiba Inu token have reportedly sent 50 percent of the SHIB token supply to Buterin’s wallet over the past year. The coin’s website also states that 50 percent of the total tokens have been permanently removed from circulation, or at least that’s what the developers presumably envisioned.