Vitalik Buterin donates over $500K in animal-themed coins to charity

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed that he had donated all the animal-themed memecoins he received last year to a charity focused on animal welfare.

On Aug. 15, Buterin posted on X that he had finished donating animal coins to charity. The Ethereum co-founder shared a receipt for the donation to the Effective Altruism Funds’ Animal Welfare Fund.

The receipt shows that on Aug. 14, Buterin sent 200 Ether ( ETH ), worth $532,398, to the charity fund. 

Vitalik Buterin’s receipt after donating 200 ETH to charity. Source: Vitalik Buterin

The Ethereum co-founder also urged the memecoin community to send the crypto they want to send him directly to charities. Buterin also said that since 2024, the community should do more “sophisticated public goods fun-ding,” pointing toward his previous blog post on memecoins. 

Memecoin dumps after Vitalik Buterin sells holdings

The charity donation came about through an unusual series of events. A memecoin project called Neiro on ETH (NEIRO) attempted to use Buterin to gain attention, and their strategy paid off when Buterin sold the tokens .

Following his sale, the token’s price initially dropped by 60%. However, shortly after his transaction, the price surged by 200%.

The memecoin Neiro on Ethereum’s X account tagged Buterin and published a post asking the Ethereum co-founder to donate some of the proceeds to charity. They wrote: 

“Our humble ask is that you donate part of the proceeds to a stray dog shelter. And thank you for building our playground!”

In a reply on X, Buterin shared the donation receipt, confirming that the charitable contribution had been made.

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Memecoin tokens for public good

Buterin previously criticized celebrity memecoin tokens , saying he was “quite unhappy” with the cycle’s celebrity experimentation. 

On June 5, he said that financialization should serve a purpose for the public good. He believes it should bring value to society by promoting art and creativity, supporting open-source software or improving healthcare. 

Buterin’s post responded to the possibility of the Iggy Azalea-backed Mother Iggy (MOTHER) memecoin becoming the “mother” of the celebrity experimentation phase. 

While this cycle’s celebrity involvement left Buterin dissatisfied, he praised Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ Stoner Cats project , which used non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fund an animated show. “At least Stoner Cats funded an actual show, whereas the memecoins lack substance and purpose,” Buterin wrote.

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