Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Refutes Claims Of Selling Ether For Profit

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has denied allegations that he has been selling significant amounts of Ether for personal gain. Buterin claimed to have sold his ETH tokens to support various cryptocurrency projects and other charitable endeavors. 

On Friday, August 30, blockchain data tracker Lookonchain revealed that Buterin transferred 800 ETH (worth about $2 million) to a multi-signature (multi-sig) wallet. This recipient address then swapped 190 ETH for 477,000 USDC shortly after.

In the post on the X platform, Lookonchain also noted that Buterin had moved 3,000 ETH (equivalent to more than $8 million) to the same multi-sig address on August 9. Such has been the level of on-chain activity observed from the Ethereum co-founder in the past few weeks.

This latest transfer prompted a crypto community member on X to accuse Buterin of ignoring the commentary on his recent ETH transfers. Then another crypto community replied, saying that it wouldn’t be wrong of the Ethereum co-founder to take some profit by shaving his ETH holdings.

However, Buterin responded to this supportive post on X, claiming not to have sold any ETH for profit. The crypto founder said:

I haven’t sold and kept the proceeds since 2018. All sales have been to support various projects that I think are valuable, either within the Ethereum ecosystem or broader charity (e.g. biomedical R&D).

Buterin received even greater support from the online crypto community following this revelation, with some members encouraging the Ethereum co-founder to spend some of his assets on luxury.

In a Reddit post three years ago, Buterin disclosed that all the Ether tokens he owns (11.9 million ETH at the time) come from the pre-mine period, of which he received about 700,000 ETH. 

For context, pre-mining can be likened to initial coin offerings (ICOs), where founders, developers, and early investors are rewarded with a percentage of the tokens.

According to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, Buterin currently holds about 240,000 ETH (worth about $1.06 billion). This current figure is around 423,000 ETH less than the initial tokens received by the Ethereum co-founder.

As of this writing, the price of Ethereum has slumped below $2,500, reflecting a 1.9% decline in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the altcoin’s price is down by more than 10% in the past week, according to data from CoinGecko.