Ethereum co-founder Buterin burns 90% of his Shiba Inu tokens, donates rest to charity

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently burned 90 per cent of his Shiba Inu coin (SHIB) holdings and announced that he will donate the remaining 10 per cent. According to Business Insider, following Biterin’s announcement, over 40 per cent of the coin’s total circulation - more than 410 trillion tokens worth around $7 billion- were taken out of the market. Burning and donating the coins was the only option, ETH’s co-founder said. It is worth mentioning that previously Buterin had been given 50 per cent of all Shiba Inu tokens by the coin’s creators.

In a note attached to another transaction, Buterin said, “I’ve decided to burn 90% of the remaining Shiba tokens in my wallet. The remaining 10% will be sent to a (not yet decided) charity with similar values to cryptorelief (preventing large-scale loss of life) but with a more long-term orientation”. 

Further, Buterin even urged coin creators not to send large amounts of token to individuals or charities without their consent. He said that he doesn’t want to be a “locus of power of that kind”. The ETH co-founder added that it is better to just print the coins into the hands of a worthy charity directly. 

Buterin’s donations 

Meanwhile, this comes after Buterin last week gave 50 trillion SHIB tokens (worth around $1.2 billion at the time) to an India COVID-19 relief fund set up by Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal. In April Ethereum also donated about $600,000 in ether and maker (MKR) tokens to the same fund. The notable donations that amount to millions of dollars reportedly include gifts to GiveWell, a non-profit charity evaluator, Methuselah Foundation that focuses on extending the human lifespan. In addition, donations were made to Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which focused on developing safe artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

As per the report, these tokens were given to Buterin on the premise that he would not sell them. Over the past year, anonymous developers of Shiba Token had reportedly sent 50% of the SHIB token to supply to Ethererum’s co-founder. The coin’s official website has also stated that the 50% of the total supply “was burned to Vitalik Buterin” implying that the tokens have been permanently removed from the circulation or at least it was what developers presumably envisioned. However, actual aid received by charities through Buterin’s donation might be much less than that the intended amounts due to the prices of the tokens plunging following his move. 

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