Vitalik Sells 10 Billion MOODENG Memecoins to Donate to Charity
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin sold 10 billion MOODENG memecoins, then donated more than 80% of the total proceeds to the Kanro charity fund.
According to a report from Lookonchain, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's wallet address recently sold 10 billion MOODENG memecoins through the CoWSwap DEX exchange, earning 308.69 ETH (equivalent to $762,000).
After that, the "father of Ethereum" donated 260.16 ETH, equivalent to $642,000, to the Kanro charity fund (Vitalik Charity) co-founded by Vitalik Buterin.
Lookonchain said that this is the second time Vitalik Buterin has sold the memecoin MOODENG, following the sale of 11.76 billion tokens for 21.03 ETH (worth $50,900) on October 5.
At the time of writing, Vitalik still holds about 40 billion MOODENG tokens, worth up to $8 million.
Immediately after closing MOODENG profits, Vitalik Buterin posted an article with the content "appreciating the growth of memecoins and donating a part of the project's supply to charities. 10 billion MOODENG today will be dedicated to anti-airborne infectious disease technology".
The Ethereum founder has said that “anything sent to me will be donated to charity,” echoing Vitalik Buterin’s move in August to use all of his proceeds from selling memecoins to fund an animal charity.
Selling memecoins is not a new practice in the crypto community, as projects have often proactively sent tokens to the wallets of industry heavyweights like Buterin in recent years, often in small amounts, but sometimes in large amounts. They are not simply gifts, but also help to enhance the reputation of the project thanks to Buterin’s reputation. For that reason, Vitalik does not want to turn himself into a promotional tool for projects, although he does not exclude memecoin.
In a blog post in March, Buterin asserted that “memecoin has more benefits than people think”. According to him, instead of focusing on inflating the value of the coin, it should be associated with more practical purposes such as raising funds for charity. Vitalik also criticized the celebrity-backed memecoin trend, but praised Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis' Stoner Cats project for using NFTs to fund a reality show.
This is not the first time Vitalik has liquidated memecoins. The March liquidation brought in $700,000. Most notably, he sold 50% of the total supply of SHIB in May 2021, raising $1.2 billion. The Ethereum creator then donated more than $1.7 billion to global charities, including the Covid Relief Fund in India.
Speaking of MOODENG, this memecoin was just launched on the Solana blockchain on September 11, inspired by a 2-month-old pygmy hippo named Moo-Deng who lives at the Khao Kheow Zoo in Thailand. Moo-Deng, which means "jumping pig" in Thai, became famous through short videos shared by zoo staff on social media, recording Moo Deng's daily life full of clumsy but very charming and adorable actions.
Inspired by that, the memecoin MOODENG easily attracted speculators on pump.fun, contributing greatly to bringing back the halo for this platform after a somewhat "quiet" period.
However, the version of MOODENG sold by Vitalik Buterin is a "copy" on Ethereum, the price of this token has increased nearly 5 times after the charity sa
