Share this article
BTC
$85,314.24
+
0.84%ETH
$1,619.10
+
1.21%USDT
$0.9997
+
0.01%XRP
$2.0893
+
0.38%BNB
$591.19
-
0.52%SOL
$139.01
+
3.46%USDC
$0.9998
+
0.01%DOGE
$0.1577
-
0.74%TRX
$0.2425
+
0.89%ADA
$0.6309
+
0.02%LEO
$9.2975
+
0.75%LINK
$13.00
+
2.71%AVAX
$20.26
+
5.35%XLM
$0.2489
+
2.89%TON
$2.9777
-
0.75%SHIB
$0.0₄1232
-
0.11%HBAR
$0.1669
+
0.63%SUI
$2.1668
+
1.27%BCH
$335.40
-
2.64%HYPE
$18.01
+
5.28%Sign Up
- Back to menuPrices
- Back to menuResearch
- Back to menuConsensus
- Back to menu
- Back to menu
- Back to menu
- Back to menuWebinars & Events
Vitalik's Regift of Unsolicited DOGE Knockoffs Sends Memecoin Prices Plunging
The Ethereum creator has turned a memecoin marketing stunt on its head.
Vitalik Buterin has told dog-themed memecoin creators to bark up another tree.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
In a move that captivated the attention of Crypto Twitter on Wednesday, the Ethereum founder regifted tokens sent to his public wallet by the creators of Shiba Inu coin (SHIB), dogelon (ELON), Akita Inu (AKITA), mwDOGE (mwDOGE) and OURSHIB (OSHIB), blockchain records show.
Notably, Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB tokens (worth a nominal $1.2 billion at press time) to the India Covid Relief Fund kicked off by Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal late last month. He also sent about $431 million of AKITA to Gitcoin, a public Ethereum-based fundraising platform, according to Etherscan.
Memecoin creators have been sending large amounts of their tokens to the Ethereum figurehead in recent days. CryptoSlate reported Monday Vitalik was sent trillions of SHIB tokens worth over $8 billion at one point.
We will explore layer 2 solutions to Ethereum's scalability issues in the Foundations track at Consensus by CoinDesk, our virtual experience May 24-27. Register here.
The memecoin mania has caused Ethereum gas fees to surge to staggering highs, perhaps animating the network's founder to strike back.
With a multibillion-dollar net worth, Buterin can afford to be generous with tokens sent to him permissionlessly.
SHIB is down roughly 38% since Buterin started unloading but still boasts a market cap of $9 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
The coin has had more than $7 billion in volume in the last 24 hours.
Thanks @VitalikButerin
— Sandeep - Polygon (@sandeepnailwal) May 12, 2021
One thing we have learnt from Ethereum and @VitalikButerin is importance of community
We will not do anything which hurts any community specially the retail community involved with $SHIB
We will act responsibly!
Plz dont worry $SHIB holders. https://t.co/M4GxTR0JAn
Zack Seward
Zack Seward is CoinDesk’s contributing editor-at-large. Up until July 2022, he served as CoinDesk’s deputy editor-in-chief. Prior to joining CoinDesk in November 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of Technical.ly, a news site focused on local tech communities on the U.S. East Coast. Before that, Seward worked as a reporter covering business and technology for a pair of NPR member stations, WHYY in Philadelphia and WXXI in Rochester, New York. Seward originally hails from San Francisco and went to college at the University of Chicago. He worked at the PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C., before attending Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
