Vitalik Buterin Gains $700,000 From Selling Free Shitcoins

Vitalik Buterin

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has gained nearly $700,000 from dumping three tokens donated to him by memecoin projects. The prices of the tokens, SHIK, CULT, and MOPS, plunged after the sale, with the Ethereum founder converting the assets into Ether (ETH).

Buterin offloads shitcoin donations

According to data from blockchain explorer Etherscan, Buterin began selling the ERC-20 tokens in the early hours of Tuesday. The Ethereum creator sold 50 billion units of MOPS tokens, 10 billion CULT tokens, and 500 trillion SHIK tokens.

Buterin often receives such tokens from projects that transfer the tokens to the Ethereum founder’s public address. Such donations serve as a marketing gimmick for projects to convince naive investors that the Ethereum founder holds the token. 

Vitalik sold the SHIK, CULT, and MOPS tokens for 380 ETH ($600,000), 58 ETH ($91,000), and 1.25 ETH ($2,000), respectively. The total ETH derived from the sale amounted to 439.25 ETH (worth $693,000).

Memecoins Price Reaction

Following Buterin’s whale action, SHIK plunged the deepest, losing 62% of its value over the past 24 hours. That’s unsurprising as Buterin sold half of its maximum supply, which is one quadrillion. SHIK currently trades at $0.0000000056.

Despite the selloff of 6.6% of CULT, the native token for the Cult DAO, the asset saw a mild decrease of 9.6% within the last 24 hours. It now trades at $0.000009.

Interestingly, the massive sale of MOPS turned out to favor its price. Instead of going downwards, MOPS increased by a massive 25x. Its price went from $0.000000045 to $0.0000011.

Not the First Time

This is not the first time that Buterin has dumped tokens donated by memecoin projects. In May 2021, the Ethereum founder parted ways with some dog-related memecoins such as SHIBA INU, AKITA, DOGEELON, and several others.

From the total amount raised, Buterin transferred 500 million to the blockchain project Gitcoin. In the same month, he moved $1.3 billion worth of ETH into an unknown wallet address.

In November 2022, a report showed that a wallet linked to Buterin sold 3000 ETH worth $4 million. Such action is capable of causing fear, uncertainty, and doubt among investors in the crypto market. 

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