Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin announced that he has destroyed trillions of SHIB coins. He burned approximately 420 trillion worth of SHIB coins. This translates to about $6 billion worth of coins. According to Buterin, this was about 90% of his entire portfolio of SHIB coins. The creator of SHIB sent the coins to Buterin in a bid to promote the coin.
Sending almost half of the entire circulating supply of SHIB coins to the Ethereum co-founder. The coins were sent to a dead wallet. Coins in dead wallets can never be retrieved.
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Buterin attached a note to the transaction explaining the reason behind it. Impressed by the generosity of the dog token communities, the CEO burned the coins to support it. And he was doing this as a way to support the people who were trying to make the world a better place.
He intended to burn 90% of the coins and give the remaining 10% to a charity. He has not yet revealed which charity this will be.
Before the burn, Buterin had gifted 50 trillion SHIB coins to an Indian COVID relief fund.
India had seen increased instances of COVID cases in the country. With dead tolls rising daily.
SHIB price surged after Buterin burns coins | Source: SHIBUSD on TradingView.com
Buterin pointed out that he would have had to move the coins eventually for safety. And that he did not want any future transactions to be interpreted as an action. Hence, sending the coins to a dead wallet was the best course of action for right now. The founder plans to donate the remaining 10% to charity.
The Rise Of SHIB
SHIB was reportedly created to be the “DOGE killer.” The coin which was created a little over a year ago has seen increasing popularity. Following the rise in popularity
of Dogecoin.
Shiba Inu, or SHIB, is a decentralized token. The token runs on the Ethereum blockchain. It is one of the many dog meme coins that are currently on the market. Created for the dog breed Shiba Inu. The Dogecoin meme is the same dog breed as SHIB.
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SHIB coins were nearly worthless not long ago. But when it was announced that the coin would be listed on trading platforms, the price soared. Listings on OKEx and Binance saw the coin reach daily trading volumes of $500 million.
Following the news of Buterin burning his tokens, the price went up from $0.00000722 to $0.00000985. The market cap of SHIB currently sits at $4.49 billion. While a fully diluted market cap sits at $7.76 billion.
Featured image from BSC News, chart from TradingView.com