Vitalik Buterin reveals how he transformed SHIB into a $500 million donation.

• Vitalik Buterin explains the origin of Shiba Inu tokens
• Donations using the SHIB memecoin reached nearly US$500 million.
• Gradual sale of SHIB avoided impact on the market.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again commented on one of the most memorable episodes of the memecoin craze in 2021. In a post on X on March 13, 2026, he recalled how he received a huge amount of Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens and what he did with this unexpected wealth.

During the peak of memecoins, the developers of the SHIB project sent a huge amount of the token to Buterin's wallet. The initiative sought to give visibility to the project by associating it with one of the best-known figures in the cryptocurrency sector.

According to Buterin, some of these tokens were sold in exchange for Ether. The remainder ended up being allocated to philanthropic initiatives. Half of the assets were sent to the CryptoRelief fund, created to help combat the effects of Covid-19 in India. The other half was donated to the Future of Life Institute (FLI), an organization dedicated to research on existential risks, including artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and nuclear threats.

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The developer stated that he initially didn't believe it would be possible to convert such a large sum into cash. He commented that he expected to "withdraw a maximum of $10 to $25 million, because there's no way the SHIB market could be deep enough."

Despite this conservative expectation, the result was surprising. According to Buterin, "they managed to withdraw something around US$500 million."

At the time, estimates indicated that the total value of the SHIB donation could range between approximately US$650 million and US$665 million at market valuations. To avoid a sharp drop in the token's price, the sales were conducted gradually.

Market reports indicate that the CryptoRelief fund used the Wintermute trading firm to convert approximately 50 trillion SHIB into roughly US$463,9 million in USDC. This strategy allowed them to liquidate a significant portion of their position without generating strong selling pressure.

Buterin also highlighted that the tokens arrived in his wallet as a kind of gift from the memecoin developers. According to him, there was never any intention of holding these assets as a personal investment.

In addition to revisiting the donation episode, the Ethereum co-founder commented on recent changes in the Future of Life Institute's activities. He stated that when he made the donation, the organization was focused on research aimed at reducing global risks and promoting peace initiatives.

Buterin assessed that the group has now begun to dedicate more attention to political debates about artificial intelligence. In the publication, he warned that "large-scale coordinated political actions with large money groups... can easily lead to undesirable results, cause adverse reactions, and solve problems in an authoritarian and fragile way."

Even so, the developer acknowledged positive aspects in the institution's initiatives, such as the "Pro-Human AI Declaration," which advocates for broad access to the benefits of artificial intelligence and seeks to prevent the technology from being controlled by a single government or company.

The story involving SHIB and philanthropy also reinforces a characteristic frequently observed in the cryptocurrency market: the market value of memecoins can grow rapidly, but converting large positions into cash requires planning to avoid significant impacts on liquidity.