Benzinga - Vitalik Buterin, the co-creator of Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), has pledged an additional $10 million to CryptoRelief, an India-focused coronavirus prevention initiative.
What Happened: Buterin said in a tweet on Thursday that it was part of a $100 million tranche of donations.
The initiative, led by Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of Polygon (CRYPTO: MATIC), will add $90 million in USDC to the donation.
Last year @CryptoRelief_ led by @sandeepnailwal allocated $100m to Covid research projects I wanted to fundSandeep and I discussed and jointly concluded these and other projects are high-impact and need follow through grants. Hence we decided to put $100m more to these projects
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 8, 2023
Buterin explained that the funds would be used to improve indoor air quality to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, as well as to support research into inhibiting the long-term effects of the virus.
All the funds donated to CryptoRelief were generated solely from the sales of Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) tokens. These tokens were sent to CryptoRelief by Buterin at the beginning of 2021.
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Why It Matters: After the issuance of the Shiba Inu token supply in 2020, the creators of the token sent half of it, or 50%, to Buterin.
This move created a significant stir and hype around the project. In 2021, Buterin burnt these tokens, in other words, permanently destroyed – Shiba Inu tokens worth more than six billion dollars.
This move represented a massive 90% of the tokens held at the time. Buterin then proceeded to donate the remaining Shiba Inu tokens, which were valued at $1.2 billion back then.
Price Action: At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $1,834, down 0.34%. SHIB at 0.000007908, down 0.57% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.
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