How Ethereum’s Founder Donated $1.6bn to Charity from a Dogecoin Alternative
The unlikely story of Vitalik Buterin, SHIBs, DOGE and a cheap laptop from Target
Over two days in early May 2021 Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, donated $1.6bn of the Dogecoin rip off Shiba Inu to various charities and burned a further $6.3bn. This is how and why he did it.
What is Shiba Inu?
Shiba Inu, or SHIB, is a knock off of Dogecoin — the infamous dog coin propelled to fame (and partly to the Moon) by Elon Musk’s tweets early in 2021. It gets its name from the Shiba Inu dog breed. Why this breed? Kabosu, the meme dog whose face adorns the Dogecoin logo, is one.
Ironically SHIB is a joke rip off of DOGE which is a joke rip off of Bitcoin which is super meta. Their market values come solely from the fact that enough willing people find it fun and have taken a punt on them both.
Vitalik’s foray into DOGE
Back in 2016 Vitalik himself put $25,000 into DOGE at $0.0002 and after Elon’s January pump which sent the price to $0.07 he cashed out a cool $4.3m and donated it to Give Directly. He said himself that selling at the January peak felt amazing, but DOGE went on to $0.50 and higher a few months…
