Vitalik Buterin may have made a 20 million DOGE donation to the Dogecoin foundation.
Vitalik Buterin donated 20 million DOGE to the Dogecoin foundation on November 2, according to on-chain data shared by @CalisCihan in a tweet yesterday.
Reputable Dogecoin news sharer Mishaboar confirmed the transaction hours later, sharing a link to view the transaction on Dogecoin Explorer.
The @DogecoinFdn has received a donation of 20M Dogecoin from @VitalikButerin, after the 500 ETH donation in May. An announcement by the Foundation should come soon.
At this moment no other details are available. Thanks to @CalisCihan for first noticing and researching this.
— Mishaboar (@mishaboar) November 13, 2022
Notably, @CalisCihan speculates that the Dogecoin foundation may have sold the tokens on the same day as on-chain data shows that the foundation sent the 20 million DOGE to an exchange address hours later. @CalisCohan speculates that the Dogecoin Foundation may have sold the tokens as, at the time, DOGE was enjoying a massive rally thanks to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
It is worth noting that neither the Dogecoin Foundation nor Vitalik Buterin has made any announcements regarding the donation. Meanwhile, @CalisCihan expressed disappointment that the foundation did not return 5 million DOGE collected from the DOGE tip jar last year to cover Dogecoin Foundation expenses. Notably, the tip jar was initially intended to support four Dogecoin core developers.
Both @CalisCihan and Mishaboar have different speculations as to the timing. While @CalisCihan believes there might be a link between the donation and the launch of the long-anticipated DOGE ETH bridge, which Buterin collaborated on, Mishaboar points to the Dogecoin Hackathon as a possible incentive.
The 20 million DOGE donation worth about $2.9 million on November 2 comes in addition to a donation of about 500 ETH in May by the Ethereum founder. It bears mentioning that Buterin also serves as a blockchain advisor to the foundation.
For clarity, the Dogecoin Foundation is an independent entity that supports the Dogecoin network through advocacy and non-blockchain or core development efforts.
Several users have expressed excitement at the latest development despite the donation’s purpose remaining unclear.