Vitalik Buterin burns 90% of his Shiba Inu tokens

Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin отправил 90% of the SHIB tokens he still held to an inaccessible address.

Buterin burned 410 trillion SHIB worth more than $6.5 billion. In a comment on the transaction, he explained that he did not intend to hold SHIB in his wallet for security reasons. To avoid speculation in future movements, the Ethereum cofounder decided to get rid of the coins.

What vb said pic.twitter.com/RPohnWE8Em

— VB Goat (@icebucket95) May 16, 2021

The remaining 10% (70 trillion SHIB) will be donated to charity by Buterin. The aim is longer-term than the fight against COVID-19.

Against this backdrop, Shiba Inu rose 35% in two hours. According to CoinGecko, the asset’s market capitalization is $7.77 billion.

At the time of writing the token trades at around $0.0000155 — about 60% below its peak.

Earlier, the SHIB project developers sent to Buterin half of the token supply, making him the largest holder of the cryptocurrency.

In May, Buterin donated more than 50 trillion SHIB (over $1 billion) to a fund to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in India.