After a series of Ethereum (ETH) transfers to various exchanges, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has recently responded to community speculations regarding his actions.
On Warpcast, a social-focused platform by Farcaster, Vitalik Buterin refuted claims of selling Ethereum. Instead, he revealed that he had been transferring ETH to centralized exchanges (CEXs) to contribute to charitable organizations, nonprofits, or other projects.
The “father” of Ethereum asserted that he hadn’t sold this digital asset for personal gain since 2018. He clarified that when you read headlines like “Vitalik sends XXX ETH to an exchange,” it’s more like he’s making donations to charitable organizations, nonprofits, or other projects, and they need to sell that ETH to cover expenses.
However, Vitalik Buterin’s explanation aligns with recent transactions conducted by Kanro, a charitable organization focused on researching global solutions for pandemics, which has ties to Vitalik.
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, Kanro sent over $15 million worth of the stablecoin USDC to a multisig wallet in the past week. The wallet then transferred $500,000 to Coinbase in two transactions and $14.93 million to Gemini.
Additionally, Vitalik Buterin has been involved in several ETH transfers over the past few months, including:
– Early October: Vitalik transferred 1,000 ETH (approximately $1.64 million USD) to an exchange (likely Bitstamp). Over the last two months, he sent 4,400 ETH (over $7 million USD) to Bitstamp.
– September 25th: A wallet associated with Vitalik Buterin transferred an additional 400 ETH (equivalent to $632,000 USD) to Coinbase. With this transaction, the total ETH sent to Coinbase by the Ethereum co-founder reached 1,000 ETH, following another 600 ETH transaction about a month earlier.
– September 19th: A transfer of 300 ETH to Kraken.
– September 22nd: A transfer of 278 ETH to a wallet with the address 0x3F6. This wallet had previously received 350 ETH from Vitalik three weeks prior and later converted it to USDC on Uniswap v3.
– September 12th: A wallet related to Vitalik sent 2,000 ETH to an intermediary wallet with the address 0x5567, often used for depositing funds into Bitstamp. Data from Lookonchain shows that this intermediary wallet has transferred a total of 2,700 ETH (approximately $4.7 million USD) to Bitstamp in the past month.
It’s evident that since September, the Ethereum co-founder has been gradually allocating his assets to various exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp. Prior to this move, there were concerns within the community that Vitalik might be preparing to sell a large amount of ETH, potentially creating selling pressure in the cryptocurrency market. Fortunately, Vitalik has clarified the situation to some extent, easing investors’ worries.
Currently, Vitalik Buterin remains one of the top whales in the market, holding nearly 250,000 ETH (valued at approximately $390 million USD).