Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum has burned nearly half of Shiba’s Inu cryptocurrency supply (Token burn is a process that permanently removes cryptocurrencies from circulation).
He did this to honour the “generosity” of the cryptocurrency’s communities.
In a statement embedded into the transaction, Buterin explained why he had decided to burn $6.7 billion worth of SHIB tokens, stating: “I’ve actually been impressed by how the dog token communities have treated the recent donations! Plenty of dog people have shown their generosity and their willingness to not just focus on their own profits but also be interested in making the world as a whole better. I support all who are earnestly doing that.”
The recent bull run of the coin came to an abrupt end on Wednesday as the co-founder liquidated trillions of the tokens that he was gifted by Shiba’s creators and he donated the proceeds to charity. He then decided to burn the remaining 90% of Shiba tokens in his wallet after allocating 10% to charitable causes. He added that charities with similar values as “CryptoRelief,” an Indian organisation focused on supporting COVID-19 relief through crypto-asset donations, would be considered as potential recipients.
Vitalik Buterin noted that simply holding the coins entrusted to him was not an option for security reasons, adding that he wanted to avoid speculation that could arise from him making transactions using the cryptocurrency in the future. He also asked people not to donate any more tokens to him as he did not want to be a “locus of power of that kind.”
The Shiba Inu token prices went haywire when it was listed on Binance last week amid the surging popularity of Dogecoin and other dog tokens. The surge in the cryptocurrency which is now tagged a “meme token” was blamed for the recent spike in the Ethereum network fees, which hit an average all-time high of $70 on the 12th of May 2021.
SHIB is currently trading $0.00001646 and is up 3.63% as at the time of this writing. This is all happening amidst the latest crypto crash triggered by the anti-Bitcoin sentiment expressed by Elon Musk on Twitter recently.
Nice