Vitalik Buterin sold billions of Ethereum tokens for charity on Monday, raising the profile of a meme coin based on Thailand’s viral baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng. And even though it still plays second fiddle to Solana’s well-known Moo Deng coin, the asset’s price has skyrocketed.
Ethereum’s co-founder (also known as Meanwhile, an entity founded by Buterin named Kanro received $181,000 in ETH.
For years, Buterin’s digital wallet has been bombarded with unsolicited waves of digital assets, either as a token of appreciation from developers or as a pseudo-marketing move. Given that the creator of Ethereum has a huge amount of influence in the crypto industry, his digital wallet could serve as a high-profile place for projects to send their tokens and perhaps gain some exposure in the process. Probably.
Thank you to all meme coins who donate a portion of their supply directly to charity.
(Example: Last month I saw ebull send a bunch of messages to various groups)
Everything sent to me will be donated to charity (thanks moodeng! Today’s 10B will go to airborne disease control…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 7, 2024
The Ethereum co-founder received MOODENG 62 billion (currently worth $12 million) from token deployers last month. However, Buterin’s holdings have been reduced to $40 billion after several recent moves. For example, within the past few hours, Buterin sent approximately 10 billion MOODENG tokens to the decentralized exchange CoW Swap.
Notably, the meme coin that Buterin donated on Monday is not the asset that skyrocketed to a $102 million market cap in Solana. The coin has fallen 50% in the past week, coinciding with the real-life Mu Deng first coming into the spotlight.
Conversely, the Ethereum rendition, which was created a week after the dominant Solana coin, has increased in value by 480% in the past day, but its market cap of approximately $86 million still lags behind the Solana token. Mu Deng’s price on Ethereum had already doubled at the time of Buterin’s sale, and the price has since nearly tripled after news of the sale spread quickly on social media.
Trading activity for the Ethereum-based Kava token was concentrated within Uniswap, the industry-leading decentralized exchange. As of this writing, that venue saw $45 million worth of MOODENG trading hands, according to CoinGecko data.
Buterin’s donation follows a philanthropic effort in April that leveraged meme coins to benefit animal welfare. Just a month ago, Buterin, who is donating $532,000 worth of ETH to the Effective Altruism Fund’s dedicated animal welfare fund, said meme coins could serve a “positive-sum” purpose beyond rampant speculation. said.
Meme coins are highly volatile and their value mainly depends on internet trends and can change with the slightest change. Some go viral and make dizzying profits, others are temporary successes, and others quickly slump in numbers due to fraud.
Buterin mentioned his Kanro entity last year, saying the money going to the organization, which was created in 2022, would fund several “coronavirus research projects.” In his post, he emphasized the need for “public health solutions that respect people’s rights.”
In 2021, Buterin released the Ethereum meme coin “Shiba Inu” worth $6.7 billion as part of his philanthropic efforts. A portion of the proceeds were donated to the India Coronavirus Relief Fund, but 90% of his holdings were burnt and permanently removed from circulation. After the token was created, half of the supply was being sent to Buterin’s wallet.
At the time, an on-chain memo attached to Shibuinu’s transactions indicated that Buterin “didn’t want to become a powerhouse” surrounding its agenda. But the Ethereum co-founder has since taken great comfort in selling memecoins, or at least memecoins.
On Monday, Buterin acknowledged the steady flow of funds he was receiving and urged developers to “send money directly to charities” in the future. There’s no need to do that.
“I think the best thing for a memecoin is if it can bring the most positive sum to the world,” he wrote. “It’s great to see the moment it actually happens.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Daily debriefing newsletter
Start each day with the current top news stories, plus original features, podcasts, videos, and more.
