Indian COVID-relief fund returns part of Vitalik Buterin’s donations

The India-focused COVID-19-relief fund Crypto Relief has returned part of the funds Vitalik Buterin donated to the organisation. The parties decided that the Ethereum co-founder could act more swiftly, as he is not bound by local law.

CryptoRelief sending $100m of the $SHIBA funds back to me. I plan to personally deploy these funds with the help of science advisors to complement CryptoRelief’s existing excellent work with some higher-risk higher-reward covid science and relief projects worldwide. https://t.co/xvHxzwwdn8

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 28, 2022

In May 2021, Shiba Inu (SHIB) developers sent to Buterin’s wallet half of the token supply, making him the largest holder of the meme cryptocurrency.

Later, Buterin burned 410 trillion SHIB or 90% of the coins he owned, and 10% (70 trillion SHIB) he pledged to donate to charity. In the same month, he transferred more than 50 trillion SHIB (over $1 billion at the rate at the time) to the COVID-19 relief fund in India.

Earlier, Buterin donated $600 000 in cryptocurrency to this campaign.

According to the fund’s founder Sandeep Nailwal, as an Indian resident he is obliged to act in accordance with local laws. He said that Buterin is not bound by these constraints, and therefore “can move more quickly to direct funds into higher-risk but high-return projects”.

Per conversations with Vitalik (who donated ~98% of the fund) on accelerated funding in Biotechnology & Medical Science at global scale, it was concluded to a-portion 100 million USDC to Vitalik’s vision for him to implement the same

— Sandeep | Polygon 💜 (@sandeepnailwal) January 28, 2022

“In a conversation with Vitalik (whose donations accounted for ~98% of the fund) on accelerated funding in biotechnology and medicine at a global scale, it was decided to allocate 100 million USDC to his vision so that he could implement the same,” Nailwal wrote.

Buterin plans to direct the funds toward financing scientific and charitable projects to combat the pandemic. To manage the assets, he formed Balvi.

I’ve cofounded a new org (Balvi) to direct these funds, which is in a better position to make these bets which will are very-high-value and global in nature and bring great benefit to Indians and non-Indians. You can follow funds at this address:https://t.co/mvmSSGPLmI

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 28, 2022

Nailwal emphasised that Crypto Relief ‘reserves 302 million USDC to distribute funds to India’s needy regions, as it does now’.

Earlier, in July 2021, it emerged that the fund backed by Buterin had managed to convert only $20 million of the 50 trillion SHIB it had received (~$313.5 million at the time).

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