Vitalik Buterin Cuts ETH Holdings by 17K After $45M Privacy Pledge
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has reduced his Ether balance by 17,000 ETH in a month after announcing plans to allocate $45 million worth of tokens to privacy projects.
Arkham-tracked Buterin wallets held around 241,000 Ether (ETH) in early February, before a series of flows reduced it to 224,000 ETH on Tuesday.
The offer comes as Buterin continues to sell 2,961 Ether worth $6.6 million in just three days of the month. Onchain analysts reported that this has recently accelerated, with $7 million worth of tokens being sold in the past three days.
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, ETH sales are based on a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator CoW protocol using multiple small swaps rather than one large transaction, which is typically used to reduce market impact.
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Buterin committed 45 million dollars to the privacy initiative
The ETH sale comes after Buterin in January allocated 16,384 Ether, about $45 million, from his private portfolio of privacy-preserving technologies, open hardware and secure, verifiable software systems. He said the capital will be deployed gradually over the coming years as part of a broader push for open source and autonomous devices.
Buterin explained that the effort is in line with the Ethereum Foundation entering a period of “mild austerity”, while maintaining its technical roadmap. He added that he would personally take on initiatives that could be carried out by the foundation, focusing on building a complete open source software and hardware stack to protect both digital and real-world environments.
“In particular, we want to have open source, secure, and verifiable software and hardware that can protect our privacy and our public environment,” he wrote.
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ETH drops 37% in one month
Buterin's ETH sale coincided with a sharp drop in the price of ether, which has lost more than 37% in the past month, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The token was trading at $1,825.39 at press time, down about 5% from the previous day.
The weak price performance comes from the fact that more than 30% of Ether's supply remains locked up. Despite a decline in stockpiled production to 2.8%, demand for verifiers remains strong, with close entry queues and minimal exits, according to DropsTab data.
The downturn has also hit corporate ether treasuries hard. Bitumen Immersion Technologies, from the corporate giant E.T.H. One of the holders estimated that he would bear billions in losses as the token fell nearly 60% in six months, falling below the average purchase price.
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