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Vitalik donates, Shiba collapses

Vitalik Buterin discards his Shiba Inus in a donation to alleviate COVID.
| CryptoPress
 | Last updated: July 17, 2023
| CryptoPress
Last updated: July 17, 2023

CryptoPress

Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday donated 500 ETH, worth around $2 million, and more than 50 billion of the lesser-known meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) worth more than $1 billion to the Covid-Crypto Relief Fund. from India.

At least it was a billion dollars when he made the donation, in a cryptocurrency few had heard of and whose value plummeted just after news of the donation spread.

SHIB has seen a drop from $0.000028 (at the time of Buterin’s donation) to $0.00002 today, according to CoinMarketCap, as a result of active caution by some investors. The currency was used in a number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including FTX, Binance, and OKEx, and was still the 24th largest in CoinMarketCap’s ranking, with a market capitalization of $7.790 million.

The world’s youngest cryptocurrency billionaire and co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), a competitor to Bitcoin, has contributed to India’s fight against the Covid pandemic.

The donation was made in Ethereum and meme currency to India’s Covid-19 aid foundation, as well as to a number of non-profit organizations fighting the country’s second aggressive ola.

But there’s nothing conventional about this story: the Shiba Inu currency has been around for less than a year and is one of the many cryptocurrency alternatives that have seen their popularity and value plummet in recent months.

The price of SHIB has recently dropped due to the rising popularity of Dogecoin, another cryptocurrency based on memes and centered on the same dog breed, the Shiba Inu.

Following tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and rapper Snoop Dogg, the cryptocoin Dogecoin, which began as a joke, surpassed the $10 million mark in market value.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is drafting legislation to prohibit private digital currencies in favor of a digital currency backed by the Reserve Bank of India.

Sources: MSN News, MSN News, WSJ, Inc42.
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

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