A wallet linked to Vitalik Buterin has sold over $3 million worth of ether in the past 11 days.
On Sept. 30, analytics platform Spot On Chain reported a transfer of 649 ETH (roughly $1.72 million) to cryptocurrency exchange Paxos. The transaction marked the conclusion of a series of sales triggered after the Ethereum co-founder funded the wallet in question.
Identified by “0x556,” the wallet received 1,300 ETH ($3.21 million) on Sept. 19 from “0xd04”, an Ethereum wallet said to be controlled by Buterin. Reportedly, “0xd04” was funded by the crypto pioneer in 2022, when he transferred 70,000 ETH.
Notably, this wasn’t the first time these wallets have exchanged funds. According to on-chain data, “0xd04” had sent 2,000 ETH, then valued at $5.265 million on September 2023, preceded by a transfer of 999 ETH valued at $2.63 million the same month.
Meanwhile, another transfer of 1701 ETH valued at $4.47 million was made the month before, bringing the total ether received to date to 5,999 ETH.
At press time, “0x556” had not been labeled as Buterin’s, but in a post made on Sept. 12, 2023, Spot On Chain speculated that the Ethereum co-founder was behind the transfer of over 2,000 ETH to crypto exchange Bitstamp at the time.
While many view transfers like these as Buterin’s attempts at profiting, he has publicly denied these allegations and reiterated that he has not sold ETH for personal gains since 2018.
The concerns emerged earlier this month as another wallet which received 3,800 ETH from Buterin in August, was seen offloading the funds across multiple transfers. However, Buterin soon clarified that the sales were executed by a “bio-defense group” he funds.
In an earlier post, he added that all ETH sales funded by accounts linked to him were to either support ethereum ecosystem projects he deems valuable or for philanthropic purposes.
Besides community concerns over these sell-offs, the Ethereum co-founder recently came under fire for wielding too much influence over Ethereum’s direction, with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson likening Ethereum’s governance model to a “dictatorship” driven by Buterin’s pivotal decisions.
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