Vitalik Buterin Cashed Out Vast Amounts of ETH In 2017

Ethereum mastermind Vitalik Buterin, who holds 350,000 ETH in his main wallet address, allegedly cashed out $40 million worth of ETH between June 2017 and February 2018. The findings came to light by Alex Sunnarborg, a founding partner of the crypto hedge fund Tetra Capital, who dug into Vitalik’s historical account data.

The Breakdown of Vitalik’s ETH Movements

According to Etherscan, Buterin has converted 544,998 ETH to fiat currencies since 2015. This amount equals to almost $49 million, $40 million of which he moved during the period mentioned above.

5/ Vitalik likely cashed out ~ $40,000,000 worth of ETH between June 2017 – February 2018: pic.twitter.com/8RoMKU63ha

— Alex Sunnarborg (@alexsunnarborg) March 19, 2019

While today the balance of Vitalik’s main address is worth $50 million, its net worth reached $500 million when Ethereum exceeded $1,300 in December 2017.

4/ His net worth from this ETH balance alone exceeded $500,000,000 at the peak: pic.twitter.com/nLVRemAmqH

— Alex Sunnarborg (@alexsunnarborg) March 19, 2019

Sunnarborg followed up with Buterin to confirm his calculations, who clarified he has never cashed out around the $915 price level. Thus, his holdings in fiat currencies were below $30 million, reminding him that he had allocated around $8 million in donations.

My fiat holdings are well under $30m. You likely overestimated due to (1) all prices generally being on the high side, eg. I definitely never cashed out anywhere close to the $915 level, (2) forgetting charity donations (~$8m I believe)

— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) March 19, 2019

Buterin’s Contributions to Social Goodwill

Seveal times has Buterin demonstrated his eagerness to contribute to charitable events, NPOs, and the funding of tech ventures. He donated $763,970 worth of ETH to Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a non-profit focused on addressing the hazards associated with artificial intelligence (AI).

In February 2018, SENS Research Foundation (SRF) received a $2.4 million (in ETH) donation from Buterin for the research and development of diseases associated with aging. A few days later, he sent 100 ETH to The Pineapple Fund for the support of the Internet Archive digital library. Later in March, he contributed $1 million to GiveDirectly, a charitable organization for refugees in East Africa, with the Ethereum-based OmiseGO payment network.

In the same year, he donated 3,000 ETH tokens ($324,000) to three startups operating in the Ethereum ecosystem. Prysmatic Labs, Sigma Prime, and ChainSafe Systems received 1,000 ETH each to push the development of Ethereum 2.0.

Vitalik’s Account Is Pretty Big

Vitalik has been relatively transparent about his crypto assets. As the creation of Ethereum was based on donations, his charitable activity represents some of the fundamental features of ether and other competing cryptocurrencies.

While the growth of the network seems to be his primary focus, moving ETH tokens in large amounts could have an immense impact on Ethereum’s price.

About The Author

Nick Tsakanikas

Nick Tsakanikas has an academic background in business and was always interested in innovative technologies and economics. Driven by the brilliance of blockchain technology and its ability to disrupt real-life applications, he follows and writes about the most noteworthy developments from the crypto industry. Nick is a resident of Athens, Greece.