Vitalik Buterin sold $139K worth of meme coins, with ESTEE surging 100% post-sale.
Proceeds go to charity, and he urges projects to donate directly.
Despite sell-offs, meme coins maintain strong market momentum.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again sold a massive stash of meme coins that were gifted to him, stirring discussion in the crypto community. Large sell-offs despite, the meme coin sector has remained resilient, with some of its holdings recording phenomenal increases since the beginning of the year.
On-chain data from Lookonchain indicates that Buterin sold a number of meme coins, trading them for a combined total of approximately $139,000. The most notable trades were the sale of 340 billion DOG for $19,000 and 10 trillion DINU for $4,181. However, the biggest trade was ESTEE, which sold for over $116,000.
Interestingly, following the sale, ESTEE experienced a nearly 100% price rise, along with a 9000% boost in trading volume, pushing it well past $3 million. This has triggered arguments regarding the impact of Buterin’s trades on the meme coin market.
This is not the first occasion when Buterin has sold massive amounts of meme coins. He sold 10 billion MOONDENG worth approximately $976,000 last year, aggregating to $2.2 million in meme coin sales. Some of the earlier transactions include:
$35,000 worth of FWOG tokens
$67,000 in POPCAT sales
$14,000 worth of VITALIK tokens
$28,000 worth of SATO tokens
Buterin has continually directed the revenues from these sales towards charitable aims. He reaffirmed his decision of preferring to like projects directly rather than bestowing him tokens.
“Anything that does end up getting forwarded to me ends up going to charity too (thank you, MOONDENG! Today’s 10B is going to anti-airborne-disease tech),” Buterin wrote. “Although I myself like when you all forward to charity yourself, even set up a DAO and get your community directly engaged in the process and decision. I’ve made it evident before that I think the best thing for memecoins is if they can be most positive-sum for the world.”
Meme Coin Market Outlook
Despite Buterin’s sporadic sell-offs, the overall meme coin market remains in good shape. While severe liquidations temporarily impact sentiment in the short-term, there still remain traders buying assets, the valuations for which skyrocket by doing so.
Crypto bulls have been especially overbearing this week, maintaining uptrends for assets across the board. However, due to volatility associated with meme coins, investors are being wise to what perhaps will be repercussions of high-profile sales like those by Buterin.
As the crypto world evolves, the role of meme coins is still in dispute. Whether these tools can sustain their current trend in the long run or continue to be vulnerable to market fluctuations depends on adoption trends, community backing, and external influences—that is, people like Buterin himself.