Ether founder Vitalik Buterin sells millions worth of crypto – crash incoming?
Last Updated on 2 September 2024 by CryptoTips.eu
August was a terrible month for Ethereum, still the second largest digital currency. With a loss of around 20% in the past four weeks, Ether Hodlers are probably happy that September has finally started. This weekend a trader pointed out that Ether founder Vitalik Buterin sold some $10 million of his own digital currency in the past month.
Does he know something we don’t? Should we get ready for a crash?
ETF
US financial giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity recently got SEC approval to launch an Ether ETF (which trading started on July 23). However, unlike the Bitcoin ETF (which was launched in January), the Ether ETFs have not been a great success so far.
After posting bullish on ETH, Vitalik Buterin just moved 800 $ETH ($2M) to a multisig wallet and swapped 190 $ETH for 477K $USDC. 😳
— Sankalp Hashtalk (@HashtalkSankalp) August 30, 2024
He also transferred 3,000 $ETH earlier this month. Continuous selling pressure and low institutional demand are weighing on #Ethereum.
Are you… pic.twitter.com/iYVRIzG8kC
After the launch of the various Ether ETFs, the price of Ethereum performed very poorly. August is historically a bad month for crypto prices anyway, and 2024 was no different in that respect. The price of Ether fell by some 20% in the past four weeks.
Furthermore, social media posters pointed out that Ether founder Vitalik Buterin had sold some $10 million worth of Ether in recent weeks. A trader who had clearly had a bad month therefore stated that Vitalik would be better off explaining his own Ether sales rather than providing technical commentary on future blockchain projects.
I haven't sold and kept the proceeds since 2018. All sales have been to support various projects that I think are valuable, either within the ethereum ecosystem or broader charity (eg. biomedical R&D)
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 31, 2024
Bullish
Buterin answered rather quickly to the post reminded readers that he has not sold any Ether since 2018. Furthermore, the proceeds were not for himself but for various projects he supports.
Many Ether fans have been asking for Vitalik to post more bullish quotes about their favorite coin instead of writing technical articles. Two weeks ago, Vitalik responded to that criticism with a meme of a bull with a sign around its neck that read: Ethereum is good.
I have been told that I need to "do less philosophizing and do more ethereum bullposting". Hence, here is an ethereum bullpost, courtesy of stable diffusion 3 inpainting + gimp. pic.twitter.com/ZcPjNVImpn
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 21, 2024
As a reminder, Vitalik is (according to research by Arkham Intelligence) a billionaire thanks to the success of Ether, hence a $10 million sale does not send him to the poorhouse.