Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has once again made headlines in the crypto ecosystem. Recently, Vitalik Buterin sells memecoins that he received unsolicited in his wallet, in a move that resulted in a liquidation of nearly $100,000 in Ether (ETH). The Blockchain security firm, PeckShield, was the first to report the transactions through the Etherscan block explorer.
Analysis of the transactions shows a series of strategic moves on the decentralized platform Uniswap. Buterin disposed of approximately 500 billion SHIKOKU (SHIK) tokens, obtaining around 64 ETH for them. This sale represented the bulk of the total liquidation. Additionally, he also sold 50 billion CULT DAO (CULT) tokens for about 32 ETH. These assets are part of the numerous projects that send tokens to his public address, hoping for some kind of indirect validation from the influential figure.
This action is not an isolated event in the Ethereum co-founder’s behavior. Buterin has made his lack of interest in speculating with these crypto assets clear in the past. Generally, he liquidates these tokens to donate the funds to charitable causes or to prevent his holdings from being interpreted as an official endorsement of the project. Therefore, the market interprets these sales more as a wallet management routine than as a well-founded opinion on the future of said projects.
The Vitalik Effect? How the Market Reacts to His Moves
As expected, the news that Vitalik Buterin sells memecoins had an immediate impact on the market. The prices of the involved tokens, such as SHIK and CULT, experienced significant drops shortly after the massive sale became known. This phenomenon, often called the “Vitalik effect,” demonstrates the enormous influence his actions have on lower-cap assets. Memecoin investors closely monitor his public wallet, as a sell-off of this magnitude can generate high volatility and trigger panic selling among holders.
The recent token liquidation by Vitalik Buterin underscores his consistent stance on unsolicited airdrops. It is foreseeable that he will continue this practice of converting speculative tokens into funds for other purposes, whether for charity or research. For the community, this event serves as a reminder of the inherent volatility of memecoins and how they are subject to the influence of key figures. Furthermore, it reinforces the importance of not assuming endorsements based solely on token distributions to influential personalities in the sector.
